'Young man,' he asked a porter. 'When's next train Derby way?'
'Ain't none afore tomorrow.'
Toby went and had another glass of beer.
'D--d if I don't go to Turnhill,' he said to himself, slowly and
calmly, as he paid for the second glass of beer.
He crossed the station by the subway and waited for the loop-line
train to Turnhill. He had not set foot in the Five Towns for
three-and-twenty years, having indeed carefully and continuously
avoided it, as a man will avoid the street where his creditor
lives. But he discovered no change in Knype railway-station. And
he had a sort of pleasure in the fact that he knew his way about
it, knew where the loop-line trains started from and other
interesting little details. Even the special form of the loop-line
time-table, pasted here and there on the walls of the station, had
not varied since his youth. (We return Radicals to Parliament, but
we are proud of a railway which for fine old English conservatism
brooks no rival.)
Toby gazed around, half challengingly and half nervously--it was
conceivable that he might be recognized, or might recognize. But
no! Not a soul in the vast, swaying, preoccupied, luggage-laden
crowds gave him a glance. As for him, although he fully recognized
nobody, yet nearly every face seemed to be half-familiar.
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