"You can't get to B. in that train," he said. "It doesn't go there."

I was not prepared to sit down under that rebuff without a struggle.

"The R.T.O. who was here this morning," I said, "told me to travel by
this train."

"Sorry," he said. "But you can't, or if you do you won't get to B."

"How am I to get there?" I asked.

"I don't know that you can."

"Do you mean," I said, "that no train ever goes there?"

He considered this and replied cautiously.

"There might be a train to-morrow," he said, "or next day."

The prospect was not a pleasant one; but I knew that R.T.O.'s are not
infallible. Sometimes they have not the dimmest idea where trains are
going. I left the office and wandered about the station until I found
the officer in command of the train. He was a colonel, and I was, of
course, a little nervous about addressing a colonel. But this colonel
had kindly eyes and a sorrowful face. He looked like a man on whom
fate had laid an intolerable burden. I threw myself on his mercy.

"Sir," I said, "I want to go to B. I am ordered to report myself
there. I am trying to take my servant with me. What am I to do?"

That colonel looked at me with a slow, mournful smile.

"This train," he said, "isn't supposed to go to B. You can't expect
me to take it there just to suit you?"

He waved his hand towards the train. It was enormously long. Already
several hundred men were crowding into it. I could not expect to have
the whole thing diverted from its proper course for my sake. I stood
silent, looking as forlorn and helpless as I could. My one hope, I
felt, lay in an appeal to that colonel's sense of pity.

"We shall pass through T. to-morrow morning about 6 o'clock," he
said.

That did not help me much. I had never heard of T. before. But
something in the colonel's tone encouraged me. I looked up and hoped
that there were tears in my eyes.

"T.," said the colonel, "is quite close to B. In fact it is really
part of B., a sort of suburb."

That seemed to me good enough.

"Take me there," I said, "and I'll manage to get a taxi or
something."

"But," said the colonel, "my train does not stop at T. We simply pass
through the station. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll slow down
as we go through. You be ready to jump out. Tell your servant to
fling out your valise and jump after it. You won't have much time,
for the platform isn't very long, but if you're ready and don't
hesitate you'll be all right."