However, he was wrong. The Loop caught the express, though it was a
nearish thing. He dashed down into the subterranean passage at Knype
Station, reappeared on the up-platform, ran to the fore-part of the
express, which was in and waiting, and jumped; a porter banged the door,
a guard inspired the driver by a tune on a whistle, and off went the
express. Arthur was now safe. Nothing ever happened to a North-Western
express. He was safe. He was shorn of his luggage (almost, but not
quite, indispensable) and of Simeon; but he was safe. He could not be
disgraced in the world's eye. He thought of poor, gallant,
imperturbable, sprained Simeon freezing on the trunk in the middle of
the cinder-waste.
III
The train stopped momentarily at a station which he thought to be
Lichfield. Then (out of his waking dreams) it seemed to him that
Lichfield Station had strangely grown in length, and just as the train
was drawing out he saw the word "Stafford" in immense white enamelled
letters on a blue ground. There was nobody else in the compartment. His
heart and stomach in a state of frightful torture, he sprang out of
it--not on to the line, but into the corridor (for it was a corridor
train) and into the next compartment, where were seated two men.
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