Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/169

 "That doesn't allow us much time for changing, does it?" I remark.

"No," he replies, growing thoughtful again. "No, that's awkward. If it were only the other way round, it would be all right, or it would do if our train got there five minutes before its time, and the other one was a little late in starting."

"Hardly safe to reckon on that," I suggest; and he agrees with me, and proceeds to look for some more fitable trains.

It would appear, however, that all the trains from Darmstadt to Heidelberg start just a few minutes before the trains from Munich arrive. It looks quite pointed, as though they tried to avoid us.

B.'s intellect generally gives way about this point, and he becomes simply drivelling. He discovers trains that run from Munich to Heidelberg in fourteen minutes, by way of Venice and Geneva, with half-an-hour's interval for breakfast at Rome. He rushes up and down the book in pursuit of demon expresses that arrive at their destinations forty-seven minutes before they start, and leave again before they get there. He finds out, all by himself, that the only way to get from South Germany to Paris is to go to Calais, and then take the boat to Moscow. Before he has done with the time-table, he doesn't know whether he is in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, nor where he wants to get to, nor why he wants to go there.

Then I quietly, but firmly, take the book away from him, and dress him for going out; and we take our bags and walk to the station, and tell a porter that, "Please, we want to go to Heidelberg." And the porter takes us one by each hand, and leads us to a seat and tells us to sit there and be good, and that, when it is time, he will