I Waited for the train

“Well, they call me so because I am a little mad, I suppose,” she said,

good-humouredly, in answer to Clara’s cautiously worded question as to how

she came by so strange a nickname “You see, I never do what sane people are

expected to do nowadays. I never wear long trains (talking of trains, that’s

the Charing Cross Metropolitan Station I’ve something to tell you about

that), and I never play lawn-tennis. I ca’n’t cook an omelette. I ca’n’t

even set a broken limb! There’s an ignoramus for you!”

Clara was her niece, and full twenty years her junior; in fact, she was still

attending a High School — an institution of which Mad Mathesis spoke with

undisguised aversion. “Let a woman be meek and lowly!” she would say.

“None of your High Schools for me!” But it was vacation-time just now, and

Clara was her guest, and Mad Mathesis was showing her the sights of that

Eighth Wonder of the world — London.

“The Charing Cross Metropolitan Station!” she resumed, waving her hand

towards the entrance as if she were introducing her niece to a friend. “The

Bayswater “and Birmingham Extension is just completed, and the trains now

run round and round continuously — skirting the border of Wales, just

touching at York, and so round by the east coast back to London. The way the

trains run is most peculiar. The westerly ones go round in two hours; the

easterly ones take three; but they always manage to start two trains from

here, opposite ways, punctually every quarter of an hour.”

“They part to meet again,” said Clara, her eyes filling with tears at the

romantic thought.

“No need to cry about it!” her aunt grimly remarked. “They don’t meet on

the same line of rails, you know. Talking of meeting, an idea strikes me!”

she added, changing the subject with her usual abruptness. “Let’s go

opposite ways round, and see which can meet most trains. No need for a

chaperon — ladies’ saloon, you know. You shall go whichever way you like,

and we’ll have bet about it!”

“I never make bets,” Clara said very gravely. “Our excellent preceptress

has often warned us — ”

“You’d be none the worst if you did!” Mad Mathesis interrupted. “In fact,

you’d be the better, I’m certain!”

“Neither does our excellent preceptress approve of puns,” said Clara. “But

we’ll have a match, if you like. Let me choose my train,” she added after a

brief mental calculation, “and I’ll engage to meet exactly half as many

again as you do.”

“Not if you count fair,” Mad Mathesis bluntly interrupted. “Remember, we

only count the trains we meet on the way. You mustn’t count the one that

starts as you start, nor the one that arrives as you arrive.”

“That will only make the difference of one train,” said Clara, as they

turned and entered the station. “But I never travelled alone before. There’

ll be no one to help me to alight. However, I don’t mind. Let’s have a

match.”

A ragged little boy overheard her remark, and came running after her. “Buy a

box of cigar-lights, Miss!” he pleaded, pulling her shawl to attract her

attention Clara stopped to explain.

“I never smoke cigars,” she said in a meekly apologetic tone. “Our

excellent preceptress — “ But Mad Mathesis impatiently hurried her on, and

the little boy was left gazing after her with round eyes of amazement. The

two ladies bought their tickets and moved slowly down the central platform.

Mad Mathesis prattling on as usual — Clara, silent, anxiously reconsidering

the calculation on which she rested her hopes of winning the match.

“Mind where you go, dear!” cried her aunt, checking her just in time. “One

step more, and you’d have been in that pail of cold water,”

“I know, I know,” Clara said dreamily. “The pale, the cold, and the moony

— ”

“Take your places on the spring-boards!” shouted a porter.

“What are they for!” Clara asked in a terrified whisper.

“Merely to help us into the trains.” The elder lady spoke with the

nonchalance of one quite used to the process. “Very few people can get into

a carriage without help in less than three seconds, and the trains only stop

for one second.” At this moment the whistle was heard, and two trains rushed

into the station. A moment’s pause, and they were gone again; but in that

brief interval several hundred passengers had been shot into them, each

flying straight to his place with the accuracy of a Minie bullet — while an

equal number were showered out upon the side-platforms.

Three hours had passed away, and the two friends met again on the Charing

Cross platform, and eagerly compared notes. Then Clara turned away with a

sigh. To young impulsive hearts, like hers, disappointment is always a bitter

pill. Mad Mathesis followed her, full of kindly sympathy.

“Try again, my love” she said cheerily. “Let us vary the experiment. We

will start as we did before, but not begin counting till our trains meet.

When we see each other, we will say ‘one!’, and so count on till we come

here again.”

Clara brightened up. “I shall win that”, she exclaimed eagerly, “if I may

choose my train!”

Another shriek of engine whistles, another upheaving of spring-boards,

another living avalanche plunging into two trains as they flashed by and the

travelers were off again.

Each gazed eagerly from her carriage window, holding up her handkerchief as a

signal to her friend. A rush and a roar. Two trains shot past each other in a

tunnel, and two travelers leaned back in their corners with a sigh — or

rather with two sighs — of relief. “One!” Clara murmured to herself.

“Won! It’s a word of good omen. This time, at any rate, the victory will be

mine”

But was it?