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I've had an awful time. I say, do you know, I've met two station-masters already this morning who've never even heard of you. You must inquire into it." At that moment a porter came up. "Did you give up your ticket, sir?" he asked Herbert. "I hadn't time to get one," said Herbert, quite at his ease. "I'll pay now," and he began to feel in his pockets.... The train moved out of the station.
It is difficult to get subordinate Indian railway officials to realise that minutes are of importance. Express trains, especially on some of the lines where the number of European officials is not great, are frequently held up through the carelessness of native station-masters at roadside stations.
He recommended to amazed clerks in provincial banks the use of cheques, ridiculed to speechless station-masters the side-entrance railway carriage with its want of room, and the size of the goods trucks. He is said to have been the first to suggest that soda-water fountains might be run at a large profit in London.
"The situation," he said, "exacts circumspection. We are facing a perilous unknown." Then Loyer, looking at his war colleague with cynical contempt, said: "In the very improbable case of a war, don't you think, my dear colleague, that the real generals would be the station-masters?" The three Ministers went out by the private stairway. The President of the Council was waiting for them.
As the line grew longer, native officers and non-commissioned officers from the active and reserve lists of the Egyptian Army were appointed station-masters. Intelligent non-commissioned officers and men were converted into shunters, guards, and pointsmen. Traffic was controlled by telephone.
But I found the carriages comfortable enough, being built in the American fashion, and furnished with Venetians to keep out the sun and let in the air. Except the station-masters, all the officials were Chinese or Javan natives. The guard who looked at my ticket wore the traditional peaked cap and cloth uniform, but over his European garments he had appended as usual his airy native costume.
He recommended to amazed clerks in provincial banks the use of cheques, ridiculed to speechless station-masters the side-entrance railway carriage with its want of room, and the size of the goods trucks. He is said to have been the first to suggest that soda-water fountains might be run at a large profit in London.
We then drank a farewell stirrup cup, which our bareheaded host brought out to us after we had taken our seats, and were just about to start, when Baron Maidel shouted to me, with an air of serious concern, "Have you got a club for the drivers and station-masters?" "No," I replied, "I don't need a club; I can talk to them in the most persuasive Russian you ever heard." "Akh! Neilza!"
Travellers may write complaints in the space allotted in the post-books for such things, but with very little result, if one may judge from the perfect indifference which the station-masters exhibit when you threaten to do so. I was more than once tauntingly asked whether I would not write a complaint.
Who is it that consumes the large packets of sandwiches with which parting guests are always laden? I imagine that station-masters' dogs are mainly fed upon them. The first half-mile was occupied, on Wilkinson's part, in little would-be efforts to make his companion more comfortable.
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