it comes to
a bad end. I expect it is recognised afterwards, a broken-down, unloved,
friendless, old train, wandering aimless and despised in some far-off
country, musing with bitter regret upon the day when, full of foolish
pride and ambition, it started from Munich, with its boiler nicely oiled,
at 1.45.

B. abandons this 1.45 as hopeless and incorrigible, and continues his
search.

"Hulloa! what's this?" he exclaims. "How will this do us? Leaves Munich
at 4, gets to Heidelberg 4.15. That's quick work. Something wrong
there. That won't do. You can't get from Munich to Heidelberg in a
quarter of an hour. Oh! I see it. That 4 o'clock goes to Brussels, and
then on to Heidelberg afterwards. Gets in there at 4.15 to-morrow, I
suppose. I wonder why it goes round by Brussels, though? Then it seems
to stop at Prague for ever so long. Oh, damn this timetable!"

Then he finds another train that starts at 2.15, and seems to be an ideal
train. He gets quite enthusiastic over this train.

"This is the train for us, old man," he says. "This is a splendid train,
really. It doesn't stop anywhere."

"Does it _get_ anywhere?" I ask.

"Of course it gets somewhere," he replies indignantly. "It's an express!
Munich," he murmurs, tracing its course through the timetable, "depart
2.15. First and second class only. Nuremberg? No; it doesn't stop at
Nuremberg. Wurtzburg? No. Frankfort for Strasburg? No. Cologne,
Antwerp, Calais? Well, where does it stop? Confound it! it must stop
somewhere. Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen? No. Upon my soul, this
is another train that does not go anywhere! It starts from Munich at
2.15, and that's all. It doesn't do anything else."

It seems to be a habit of Munich trains to start off in this purposeless
way. Apparently, their sole object is to get away from the town. They
don't care where they go to; they don't care what becomes of them, so
long as they escape from Munich.

"For heaven's sake," they say to themselves, "let us get away from this
place. Don't let us bother about where we shall go; we can decide that
when we are once fairly outside. Let's get out of Munich; that's the
great thing."

B. begins to grow quite frightened. He says:

"We shall never be able to leave this city. There are no trains out of
Munich at all. It's a plot to keep us here, that's what it is. We shall
never be able to get away. We shall never see dear old England again!"