_Country Cousin, bound for Bayswater, to ticket clerk, with scrupulous
politeness._ If you please, I want a first-class ticket to Bayswater.
_Ticket Clerk (abruptly)._ No first-class here. Go to the next
booking-place.
[_Country Cousin retires rebuffed, and finds his way to next
booking-place._
_Country Cousin._ If you please, I want a first-class ticket to
Bayswater.
_Ticket Clerk (explosively)._ Single or return? Look sharp! You're not
the only person in London!
_Country Cousin (humbly)._ Single, please.
[_The ticket and change are slapped down unceremoniously, and Country
Cousin is shoved on from behind by an impatient City man. Rushes
precipitately down brass-bound steps, and presents his ticket to be
snipped._
_Snipper (inspecting ticket)._ Queen's Road, Bayswater? Wrong side! Go
up the stairs, and turn to the right. Look sharp! There's a train just
coming in!
[_Country Cousin, with a deepened sense of humiliation and bewilderment,
hurries upstairs, turns to the right, and reaches entrance to platform
just in time to have gate slammed in his face. The train being gone,
gate is re-opened, and the necessary snipping performed on his ticket._
_Country Cousin (to Snipper, politely)._ If you please--will the next
train take me to Queen's Road, Bayswater?
_Saturnine Official._ Can't tell you till the train comes.
[_Country Cousin paces the platform in moody silence, and wishes he had
taken a cab. Enter train, rushing madly along._
_Stentorian voice (without stops)._ Earl's Court North End and
Hammersmith train first and second-class forward third behind!
[_Country Cousin makes his way towards a carriage, but finds it full.
Tries another with the same result, and is frantically endeavouring to
open the door of a third-class compartment in which there is one vacant
seat next a fat woman with a baby, when train moves on._
_Indignant Official._ Stand away there! Stand away, will you! (_Drags
back Country Cousin._) That ain't your train! What do you want a-tryin
to get in there for?
[_Country Cousin, in deeper humiliation, re-arranges dress, disturbed by
recent struggle and resumes his agitated march._
_Enter another train more madly than the first._
_Stentorian voice._ High Street Kensington Notting Hill Gate and
Bayswater train main line train!
_Country Cousin (to Haughty Official, in an agony of entreaty)._ Is this
train for Queen's Road, Bayswater?
_Haughty Official._ Yes, Queen's Road. Look sharp! She'll be off in a
minute.
[_Country Cousin scrambles through the crowd to a carriage; drops his
umbrella; stoops to pick it up and on rising finds train three parts
through the tunnel. Exit Country Cousin in a rage, to get a cab, having
lost twenty minutes, the price of his unused ticket, his self-respect,
and that of everybody he has come in contact with in the Metropolitan
District Railway Station._
* * * * *
[Illustration: WHEN IN DOUBT--DON'T!