a bottle of medicine? A gentleman has taken a
bottle of poison (laudanum) by mistake."

Between each five paces he looked at an official telegram in his
hand, refreshed his memory, and said his say. The dreamy look on my
companion's face--he had gone far away with Tess--passed with the speed
of a snap-shutter. After the manner of his countrymen, he had risen to
the situation, jerked his bag down from the overhead rail, opened it,
and I heard the click of bottles. "Find out where the man is," he said
briefly. "I've got something here that will fix him--if he can swallow
still."

Swiftly I fled up the line of carriages in the wake of the guard. There
was clamour in a rear compartment--the voice of one bellowing to be let
out, and the feet of one who kicked. With the tail of my eye I saw
the New York doctor hastening thither, bearing in his hand a blue
and brimming glass from the lavatory compartment. The guard I found
scratching his head unofficially, by the engine, and murmuring: "Well, I
put a bottle of medicine off at Andover--I'm sure I did."

"Better say it again, any'ow'," said the driver. "Orders is orders. Say
it again."

Once more the guard paced back, I, anxious to attract his attention,
trotting at his heels.

"In a minute--in a minute, sir," he said, waving an arm capable of
starting all the traffic on the London and Southwestern Railway at a
wave. "Has any gentleman here got a bottle of medicine? A gentleman has
taken a bottle of poison (laudanum) by mistake."

"Where's the man?" I gasped.

"Woking. 'Ere's my orders." He showed me the telegram, on which were the
words to be said. "'E must have left 'is bottle in the train, an' took
another by mistake. 'E's been wirin' from Woking awful, an', now I
come to think of, it, I'm nearly sure I put a bottle of medicine off at
Andover."

"Then the man that took the poison isn't in the train?"

"Lord, no, sir. No one didn't take poison that way. 'E took it away
with 'im, in 'is 'ands. 'E's wirin' from Wokin'. My orders was to ask
everybody in the train, and I 'ave, an' we're four minutes late now. Are
you comin' on, sir? No? Right be'ind!"

There is nothing, unless, perhaps, the English language, more terrible
than the workings of an English railway-line. An instant before it
seemed as though we were going to spend all eternity at Framlynghame
Admiral, and now I was watching the tail of the train disappear round
the curve of the cutting.

But I was not