Pancras we might telegraph to
her the actual hour of the train's arrival, in case she should desire to
meet it. The idea commended itself to Briggs: he had not thought of such
a thing: telegraphing had perhaps hardly come within his purview, at
least so I surmised when, the telegraph-form before me, I asked him what
he wished me to write. He began cheerily, as though dictating a letter
of gossip:--"_My dear wife_--" Economy necessitated a taboo of this
otherwise charming method of communication. "_Arriving Bradford
five-thirty, Tom_," was the result of final boilings-down, which took so
long that we nearly achieved the anticlimax of missing our train
altogether.
Now at Bradford (at the end of one of the chattiest five hours I ever
spent in my life) no Mrs. Briggs was perceptible. I kept my patient on
the platform until every other passenger had gone: I marched him up and
down the main area of the station. Each time I caught sight of a woman
who looked a possible Mrs. Briggs I steered my charge into her vicinity.
In spite of a piece of information which Briggs had imparted to me on
the journey--namely, that he expected soon to become a father--I was
surprised that his wife had not come to the station to welcome him.
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