The Stratagem and Other Stories

The Stratagem The fellow-travellers climbed down on to the fiery sand of the platform. It was a junction, a junction of that kind where there is no town for miles, and where the resources of the railway and its neighbourhood compare unfavourably with those of the average quar- antine station. The first to descend was a man unmistakably Eng- lish. He was complaining of the management even while he extracted his hand-baggage from the carriage with the assistance of his companion. “It is positively a disgrace to civilisation,” he was saving, “that there should be no connection at such a station as this, an important station, sir, let me tell you, the pivot—if I may use the metaphor—of the branch which serves practically the whole of Muckshire south of the Tream. And we have certainly one hour to wait, and Heaven knows it’s more likely to be two, and perhaps three. And, of course, there’s not as much as a bar nearer than Fatloam; and if we got there we should positive and actual disgrace to the railway that allows it, to the country that tolerates it, to the civilisation that permits that such things should be. The same thing happened to me here last year, sir, though luckily on that occasion I had but half-an-hour to wait. But I wrote to The Times a strong half-column letter on the subject, and I’m damned if they didn’t re- fuse to print it. Of course, our independent press, etc.; I might have known. I tell you, sir, this country is run by a ring, a dirty ring, a gang of Jews, Scotchmen, Irish, Welsh—where’s the good old jolly True Blue English- man? In the cart, sir, in the cart.” The train gave a convulsive backward jerk, and lum- bered off in imitation of the solitary porter who, sta- tioned opposite the guard’s van, had witnessed without emotion the hurling forth of two trunks like rocks from a volcano, and after a moment’s contemplation had, with