y are underneath the carriages. Unless you drop off just before the
terminus, which hurts, the same objection arises as in the under-the-seat
method; and in any case you are practically certain to be spotted not only
by the officials of the railway company concerned but with axle-grease.

It is of course possible to travel without concealment and without a ticket
either, merely discovering with a start of surprise when you are asked for
it that you have lost the beastly thing. But this involves acting. It
involves hunting with a great appearance of energy and haste in all your
pockets, your reticule, your hatband, the turn-ups of your trousers, _The
Rescue_ (for you certainly used something as a book-marker) and finally
turning out in front of all the other passengers the whole of your
note-case, which proves that you cannot have been going to stay at the
"Magnificent" after all, and the envelopes of all the old letters which you
were taking down to the sea in the hopes of answering them there; and even
after that you have to give the name and address of somebody you don't like
(say Sir ERIC GEDDES) to satisfy the inspector.

On the whole I think the best way is the one which I mean to adopt myself
at the earliest opportunity. Let us suppose that you are going to Brighton.
At Victoria Station you will purchase (1) a return ticket to Streatham
Common, (2) a platform ticket. The platform ticket entitles you to walk on
to the platform from which the Brighton train starts, and, when it is just
moving out and all the tickets have been looked at, you will leap on board.
This brings you to Brighton, and all you have to do there is to accost the
man who takes the tickets in a voice hoarse with fury. "Look here," you
will say, "I had an important business engagement at Streatham Common,
worth thousands and thousands of pounds to me, and one of your fool porters
told me a wrong platform at Victoria. What are you going to do about it?"
Now you might think that the porter would reply, "Come off it, Mister; you
don't kid me like that," or make some other disappointing and impolite
remark; but not a bit of it. Bluster is the thing that pays. First of all
he will apologise, and then he will fetch the station-master, and he will
apologise too, and after a bit they will offer you a special train back to
Streatham Common, probably the one the KING uses when he goes to the
seaside. But you will of course refuse to be pacified and wave it aw