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I jumped up from the seat before he had time to tell us anything more, and pushing a shilling into his hand said that the ticket-collector was beckoning to him. He was so surprised that he had not enough breath to thank me, but he was kind enough to go away. When he thought I was not looking I saw him tapping his forehead and grinning like that abominable waiter in the Union.
Darnby Frere, who was a student of Henry James's works, and therefore constantly made elaborate guesses on matters that did not concern him, and then forgot them because unlike Mr. James's guesses they were always wrong, gave the newcomer credit for being perhaps a shopwalker, or perhaps a South-Eastern and Chatham ticket-collector, but surely a chapel-goer.
They each seemed to challenge the humble stranger, "Superfluous? Not I, I'm a recruit for national service!" Even a woman doing time-honored womanly work moved with an air of distinction; she dusted a room for the good of her country. Just one glimpse was I given of the old-time daughter of Eve, when a ticket-collector at Reading said: "I can't punch your ticket.
It was at him that Noel looked. When he glanced out of the window, or otherwise retired within himself, she liked his face; but when he turned to the ticket-collector or spoke to the others, she did not like it half so much. It was as if the old fellow had two selves, one of which he used when alone, the other in which he dressed every morning to meet the world.
He is like a conscientious ticket-collector among his impressions. And did you notice how beautifully my pianola rolls are all numbered and catalogued? He did that. He set to work and did it as soon as he got here, just as a good cat when you bring it into the house sets to work and catches mice. Previously the pianola music was chaos. You took what God sent you.
Well, Phoebe might take her choice! for they had come to the parting of the ways. Either a good painter, a man on the level of the best, trained and equipped as they, or something altogether different foreman, a clerk, perhaps, in his uncle's upholstery business at Darlington, a ticket-collector on the line anything! He could always earn his own living and Phoebe's. There was no fear of that.
"There was a fellow I knew one time," said the ticket-collector, "that got £200 out of this company, and he wasn't as bad as you nor near it." "I remember that well," said the attendant "It was his elbow he dislocated, and him getting out at the wrong side of the carriage." "He'd have got more," said the ticket-collector.
He brought a basin full of lukewarm water and a table napkin. The cook wrapped the soaked napkin round the ankle. The ticket-collector tied it in its place with a piece of string. The attendant coaxed the sock over the bulky bandage. The new brown boot could by no means be persuaded to go on. It was packed by the attendant in the kit bag.
The ticket-collector, running from carriage to carriage, was in too great a hurry to discover that the little bit of pasteboard which Joseph Wilmot exhibited was only a return-ticket to Wandsworth. There was a brief scramble, a banging of doors, and Babel-like confusion of tongues; and then the engine gave its farewell shriek and rushed away.
"It's hot water," he said, "that's best for the like of that." "It could be," said the ticket-collector, "that it's broke on him." "Cold water," said Mannix firmly. "With a sup of whiskey in it," said the attendant "If it's broke," said the ticket-collector, "and you go putting whiskey and water on it it's likely that the young gentleman will be lame for life."
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