nt. Or it may have been because the
gate-latch sticks and he did not jump well. Enderby asserts that my
house is nine minutes from the station, and Jackson says it is six, and
therein lies the whole difference between optimism and pessimism. All I
know is that, if I gather my hat, coat, _Times_, stick, pipe, tobacco
and matches and put as many as possible of them in appropriate places
just after Enderby has passed the gap, I catch the 8.52 nicely. If I do
these things just after Jackson has passed I catch it nastily, just
about the rear buffers. My proposal is that Enderby and Jackson should
encourage me a little by wearing scarlet coats, so that I can see them
twinkling more brightly through the gap in my hedge, and if they will do
this I will promise to provide them both with hunting horns. I have
pointed out that a "View halloo" from Enderby, followed by a stirring

"Tantivvy, Tantivvy, Tantivvy;
Tra-la, Tra-la, Tra-la"

from Jackson, will, if any power on earth can do it, bring me from my
toast in time for my train in the morning.

I have explained to them that nothing can be pleasanter or more
beautiful for the baker, the butcher and the grocer to look at every
morning than Enderby and Jackson dressed in pink, with a despatch-case
in one hand and a hunting-horn in the other. There must be other
sportsmen situated as I am, and I should like to see all the little
lanes streaming with pink coats; and it would be very nice too if they
all brought their dogs to see them off, as some do already.

I am quite prepared to admit that neither Enderby nor Jackson sees eye
to eye with me in this matter. They argue that ample notice is given of
the imminent arrival of the 8.52 by the express train which passes
through the cutting at 8.43, and is popularly known as "the warner." I
have replied that I cannot hear express trains when I am eating toast,
and that the only warner I recognise is PLUM WARNER, who cannot by any
stretch of language be called an express train. There the matter rests
at present, and I suppose in a few days I shall miss the 8.52 again.

Happily I have now found out what to do when this occurs. Enderby and
Jackson believe that the next train is the 10.15; but that is their
narrow-minded parochialism. They are quite wrong. About ten minutes
after the 8.52 has gone away another perfectly good train steals panting
from the undergrowth. When one has missed the 8.52 one cannot wait on
the platform t