I found the best way of solving the puzzle was to consult
the timecard. If the timecard said our train would reach a given
point at a given hour, and this was the given hour, then we might
be pretty sure this was the given point. Timetables in England
are written by realists, not by gifted fiction writers of the
impressionistic school, as is frequently the case in America.
So, if this timecard says it is time for you to get off you get
off, with your ticket still in your possession; and if it be a
small station you go yourself and look up the station master, who
is tucked away in a secluded cubbyhole somewhere absorbing tea,
or else is in the luggage room fussing with baby carriages and
patentchurns. Having ferreted him out in his hiding-place you
hand over your ticket to him and he touches his cap brim and says
"Kew" very politely, which concludes the ceremony so far as you
are concerned.
Then, if you have brought any heavy baggage with you in the baggage
car--pardon, I meant the luggage van--you go back to the platform
and pick it out from the heap of luggage that has been dumped there
by the train hands. With ordinary luck and forethought you could
easily pick out and claim and carry off some other person's trunk,
provided you fancied it more than your own trunk, only you do not.
You do not do this any more than, having purchased a second-class
ticket, or a third-class, you ride first-class; though, so far as
I could tell, there is no check to prevent a person from so doing.
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