After a moment's hesitation,
the captain sauntered after the cabs. When it is one of a man's regular
habits to live upon his fellow-creatures, that man is always more or
less fond of haunting large railway stations. Captain Wragge gleaned the
human field, and on that unoccupied afternoon the York terminus was as
likely a corner to look about in as any other.
He reached the platform a few minutes after the train had arrived.
That entire incapability of devising administrative measures for the
management of large crowds, which is one of the characteristics of
Englishmen in authority, is nowhere more strikingly exemplified than at
York. Three different lines of railway assemble three passenger mobs,
from morning to night, under one roof; and leave them to raise a
traveler's riot, with all the assistance which the bewildered servants
of the company can render to increase the confusion. The customary
disturbance was rising to its climax as Captain Wragge approached the
platform. Dozens of different people were trying to attain dozens of
different objects, in dozens of different directions, all starting
from the same common point and all equally deprived of the means of
information.
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