ion which he thought to be
Lichfield. Then (out of his waking dreams) it seemed to him that
Lichfield Station had strangely grown in length, and just as the train
was drawing out he saw the word "Stafford" in immense white enamelled
letters on a blue ground. There was nobody else in the compartment. His
heart and stomach in a state of frightful torture, he sprang out of
it--not on to the line, but into the corridor (for it was a corridor
train) and into the next compartment, where were seated two men.

"Is this the London train?" he demanded, not concealing his terror.

"No, it isn't. It's the Birmingham train," said one of the men
fiercely--a sort of a Levite.

"Great heavens!" ejaculated Arthur Cotterill.

"You ought to inquire before you get into a train," said the Levite.

"The fact is," said the other man, who was perhaps a cousin of a Good
Samaritan, "the express from Manchester is split up at Knype--one part
for London, and the other part for Birmingham."

"I know that," said Arthur Cotterill.

"Ever since I can remember the London part has gone off first."

"Of course," said Arthur; "I've travelled by it lots of times."

"But they altered it only last week."

"I only just caught the train," Arthur breathed.

"Seems to me you didn't catch it," said the Levite.

"_I must be in London before two o'clock_," said Arthur, and he said it
so solemnly, he said it with so much of his immortal soul, that even the
Levite was startled out of his callous indifference.

"There are expresses from Birmingham to London that do the journey in
two hours," said he.

"Let us see," said the cousin of a Good Samaritan, kindly, opening a bag
and producing Bradshaw.

And he explained to Arthur that the train reached New Street,
Birmingham, at 10.45, and that, by a singular good fortune, a very fast
express left New Street at 11.40, and arrived at Euston at 1.45.

Arthur thanked him and retired with his pincers and anvil to his own
compartment.

He was a ruined man, a disgraced man. The loss of his trunk was now
nothing. At the best he would be over half an hour late, and it was
quite probable that he would be too late altogether. He pictured the
other people waiting, waiting for him anxiously, as minute after minute
passed, until the fatal hour struck. The whole affair was unthinkable.
Simeon's fault, of course. Simeon had convinced him that to go up to
London on Christmas Day would be absurd, whereas it was now evide