, it only tells me that I may very probably
keep the Sabbath by not keeping the appointment.

.....

But I must resume the real details of my tale. I found that there was
only one train in the whole of that Sunday by which I could even get
within several hours or several miles of the time or place. I therefore
went to the telephone, which is one of my favourite toys, and down which
I have shouted many valuable, but prematurely arrested, monologues upon
art and morals. I remember a mild shock of surprise when I discovered
that one could use the telephone on Sunday; I did not expect it to be
cut off, but I expected it to buzz more than on ordinary days, to the
advancement of our national religion. Through this instrument, in fewer
words than usual, and with a comparative economy of epigram, I ordered a
taxi-cab to take me to the railway station. I have not a word to say in
general either against telephones or taxi-cabs; they seem to me two
of the purest and most poetic of the creations of modern scientific
civilisation. Unfortunately, when the taxi-cab started, it did exactly
what modern scientific civilisation has done--it broke down. The result
of this was that when I arrived at King's Cross my only train was gone;
there was a Sabbath calm in the station, a calm in the eyes of the
porters, and in my breast, if calm at all, if any calm, a calm despair.

There was not, however, very much calm of any sort in my breast on first
making the discovery; and it was turned to blinding horror when I learnt
that I could not even send a telegram to the organisers of the meeting.
To leave my entertainers in the lurch was sufficiently exasperating; to
leave them without any intimation was simply low. I reasoned with the
official. I said: "Do you really mean to say that if my brother were
dying and my mother in this place, I could not communicate with her?" He
was a man of literal and laborious mind; he asked me if my brother was
dying. I answered that he was in excellent and even offensive health,
but that I was inquiring upon a question of principle. What would happen
if England were invaded, or if I alone knew how to turn aside a comet or
an earthquake. He waved away these hypotheses in the most irresponsible
spirit, but he was quite certain that telegrams could not reach this
particular village. Then something exploded in me; that element of the
outrageous which is the mother of all adventures sprang up ungovernable,
and I decide