She laughed an even more satanic laugh, so satanic that Theophrastus longed for the moments when he was deaf. He raised his hat, and went quickly down the road which runs beside the railway. When he was alone, between the little trees and the telegraph posts, he said to himself: "Come, come! I must ask news of my treasures of Signor Petito himself... But how the deuce am I to do it? He is in the train _which is going to pass under my nose_." At this point it is necessary to give a map: Station A D C Station B. x------x----x----x It is unnecessary to give the names of the stations, for the demonstration is practically geometrical, and to geometry letters are more appropriate. Let us go to station A. The signal-man of station A hears the _ting!_ of the bell which announces that the express he is expecting has passed station B, and is on that section of the block-system which begins at station A and ends at station B. The express goes from B to A. It is on the line B A. That is clear. The signal at A announces the train by lowering its little red arm with a _ting!_ The signal-man at station A waits for the train, and waits for the train, and waits for the train! It ought to be there. It is a train which goes sixty miles an hour, and, if it is late, it goes seventy or eighty. The distance between station A and station B is at the most three miles and a furlong. Three minutes and a half is the longest an express takes to do the distance. The signal-man, frightened to death at not seeing the train appear, shouts to the station-master that the train ought to have gone through! The station-master dashes to the telegraph, and telegraphs station B: "Train signalled not arrived!" Station B answers: "Joker!" Station A: "It's serious. What are we to do? Horrible anxiety." Station B: "Notify Jericho!" Station A: "There must have been an accident! We are hurrying along the line! Come and meet us!" Station B: "What can have happened? We are coming." Then the station-master, the porters, and the ticket-clerks of stations A and B hurry along the line, the staff of station A going towards station B, the staff of station B going towards station A. They hurry along, in the full light of day, in the middle of a perfectly flat plain, a plain without a river, without ridge, and without hollow. They hurry along the line, and meet one another between A and B.... But they do not meet the train! The station-master of station A (I say particularly of station A), who suffered from heart disease, fell down dead. CHAPTER XXI THE EARLESS MAN WITH HIS HEAD OUT OF THE WINDOW