There was plenty of light and stir at Paddington, which appeared like a great and glowing cavern in the cold darkness of the night.  There were engines shunting, cabs arriving, porters and passengers rushing about with luggage, throngs of people.  It happened that the midnight train from Cornwall was overdue, and fluttered women waiting for friends were importuning bored officials about the delay.  Sleepy children stared with wondering eyes at pictorial efforts to beguile the tedium of waiting for trains.  There were geographical posters comparing Cornwall favourably to Italy; posters of girls in bathing costume beckoning to “the Cornish Riviera;” posters of frolicsome puppies in baskets ticketed “Lucky Dogs, They’re Off to Penzance.”

The passengers waiting for the midnight train to that resort did not do equal justice to this flattering assumption of its delights.  They seemed, on the whole, rather to regard themselves as unlucky dogs (if the term could be applied to parties of women), and were huddled together on the station seats in attitudes suggestive of despair.  Men flirting with barmaids in the bars may have considered themselves lucky dogs, but whisky played an important part in their exhilaration.

The belated train came rushing in with an effusion of steam, like a late arrival puffing out apologies, bringing a large number of passengers back to London from Penzance.  They scrambled on to the platform with the dishevelled appearance of people who had been cooped up for hours.  First-class passengers eased their pent-up energy by shouting for luggage porters and bundling their women into taxicabs.  The third-class passengers, whose minor importance in the scheme of things did not warrant such displays of self-importance, made meekly and wearily for the exits.

They were dammed back at the barriers by two ticket collectors, whose adroit manipulation of the gates prevented more than one person trickling through at a time, and turned the choked stream of humanity within into a whirlpool of floating faces and struggling forms.  As Mr. Brimsdown stood regarding this distracting spectacle from the outside, he saw one of the ticket collectors grasp the arm of a girl who was just emerging, at the same time shutting the gate on a stout woman following, thus effectually blocking the egress of those behind.

The girl turned quickly at the touch of the detaining hand, and there was fear in her face.

“What do you want?” she said, framing the words with an obvious effort.

The ticket collector was a man whose natural choleric temperament was accentuated by the harassing nature of his employment.  He tore in two portions the ticket which the girl had just given him, and thrust half into her hand.

“Here’s your return half.  Why don’t you look what yer doin’ when givin’ up yer ticket?  You women are the limit.  Now, mother, for God’s sake don’t be all night getting through that there barrier.  There’s others want to get ’ome, if you don’t.”