" After prowling distraitly round the station (and a large
station it is) and asking every likely person if her name was
Amanda, and being frowned upon and suspected as a black slaver, and
thinking we felt on our neck the heated breath and handcuffs of the
Travellers' Aid Society, we decided that Amanda must have missed her
train and concluded to wait for the next. Then it was, to return to
our thesis, that we had occasion to observe and feel in our own
person the wretched pangs of one in despair facing the gentle--shall
we say hesychastic?--peace and benevolent quietness of the man at
the bulletin board. Bombarded with questions by the impatient and
anxious crowd, with what pacific good nature he answered our doubts
and querulities. And yet how irritating was his calmness, his
deliberation, the very placidity of his mien as he surveyed his
clacking telautograph and leisurely took out his schoolroom eraser,
rubbed off an inscription, then polished the board with a cloth,
then looked for a piece of chalk and wrote in a fine curly hand some
notation about a train from Cincinnati in which we were not at all
interested. Ah, here we are at last! Train from Philadelphia!
Arriving on track Number--; no, wrong again! He only change _5
minutes late_ to _10 minutes late_. The crowd mutters and fumes. The
telautograph begins to stutter and we gaze at it feverishly.
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