I try to cheer him up by suggesting that perhaps it is the custom in
Bavaria to leave the destination of the train to the taste and fancy of
the passengers. The railway authorities provide a train, and start it
off at 2.15. It is immaterial to them where it goes to. That is a
question for the passengers to decide among themselves. The passengers
hire the train and take it away, and there is an end of the matter, so
far as the railway people are concerned. If there is any difference of
opinion between the passengers, owing to some of them wishing to go to
Spain, while others want to get home to Russia, they, no doubt, settle
the matter by tossing up.

B., however, refuses to entertain this theory, and says he wishes I would
not talk so much when I see how harassed he is. That's all the thanks I
get for trying to help him.

He worries along for another five minutes, and then he discovers a train
that gets to Heidelberg all right, and appears to be in most respects a
model train, the only thing that can be urged against it being that it
does not start from anywhere.

It seems to drop into Heidelberg casually and then to stop there. One
expects its sudden advent alarms the people at Heidelberg station. They
do not know what to make of it. The porter goes up to the
station-master, and says:

"Beg pardon, sir, but there's a strange train in the station."

"Oh!" answers the station-master, surprised, "where did it come from?"

"Don't know," replies the man; "it doesn't seem to know itself."

"Dear me," says the station-master, "how very extraordinary! What does
it want?"

"Doesn't seem to want anything particular," replies the other. "It's a
curious sort of train. Seems to be a bit dotty, if you ask me."

"Um," muses the station-master, "it's a rum go. Well, I suppose we must
let it stop here a bit now. We can hardly turn it out a night like this.
Oh, let it make itself comfortable in the wood-shed till the morning, and
then we will see if we can find its friends."

At last B. makes the discovery that to get to Heidelberg we must go to
Darmstadt and take another train from there. This knowledge gives him
renewed hope and strength, and he sets to work afresh--this time, to find
trains from Munich to Darmstadt, and from Darmstadt to Heidelberg.

"Here we are," he cries, after a few minutes' hunting. "I've got it!"
(He is of a buoyant disposition.) "This will be it. Leaves Munich 10,
gets to Darms