American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
Meeting trains in the Grand Central, though it has not the phrenetic
difficulty of meeting trains in the Pennsylvania Station, where you
must watch two crowded stairways and a disgorging elevator in three
different directions, is not made too easy. To meet a train in the
Grand Central you must be in two widely separated spots at the same
time.
Mrs. Hazlitt, approaching the bulletin board through devious
subterranean routes, was caught in a stampede of those hurrying to
meet a belated Boston express; and when at last she wormed her way
to the front she saw that the impressive official with the glasses
well down on his nose and the extraordinary ability for making neat
figures had written down Track 12 for Lita's train. She turned liked
a hunted animal; and at the moment when Lita and Dacer were emerging
from the gate Mrs. Hazlitt was running from a point far to the west of
Vanderbilt Avenue to a track almost at Lexington. It was five o'clock,
and many heavier and more determined people were running for their
trains, so that she had a good many collisions and apologies before she
reached the gate where her daughter ought to have been.
The last passenger, carrying a bunch of flowers and a cardboard box
tied up with two different kinds of string, was just staggering through
on oddly shaped flat feet. Everyone else had disappeared. Mrs. Hazlitt
questioned the gateman. Had he seen a small young lady all alone who
seemed to be looking for someone? The gateman said that he could not
say he had, but would not care to say he had not. He possessed to
perfection the railroad man's art of not telling a passenger anything
he doesn't have to tell. His manner irritated Mrs. Hazlitt.
"I suppose you know," she said, "that you have horrible arrangements
for meeting trains."
"If some of us had our way we wouldn't have any arrangements at all,"
answered the gateman.
This shocked Mrs. Hazlitt; it seemed so autocratic. She opened her eyes
to their widest and felt she must argue the matter out with him.
"Do you mean," she asked, "that you would not let people meet trains?"
"I would not," said the gateman calmly, and having locked his gate he
went his way.
This had taken a few minutes, and by the time Mrs. Hazlitt had gone
back to the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance and found her car and driven
home, Lita was already in the library--alone.
One of the disadvantages experienced by people who express themselves
quickly is that while they are explaining how everything happened the
silent people of the world are making up their minds how much they will
tell. Mrs. Hazlitt was talking as she entered the room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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