Wherever one may be going from
there, the change is likely to be for the worse. Nevertheless, it is
impossible to stay forever; so at last you muster up your resignation
and your resources, buy tickets, and reluctantly prepare to leave. If
you depart as we did, you go by rail, driving to the station in the
venerable bus of the Charleston Transfer Company--a conveyance which,
one judges, may be coeval with the city's oldest mansions. Little as we
wished to leave Charleston we did not wish to defer our departure
through any such banality as the unnecessary missing of a train.
Therefore as we waited for the bus, on the night of leaving, and as
train time drew nearer and nearer, with no sign of the lumbering old
vehicle, we became somewhat concerned.
When the bus did come at last there was little time to spare;
nevertheless the conductor, an easygoing man of great volubility,
consumed some precious minutes in gossiping with the hotel porter, and
then with arranging and rearranging the baggage on the roof of the bus.
His manner was that of an amateur bus conductor, trying a new
experiment. After watching his performances for a time, looking
occasionally at my watch, by way of giving him a hint, I broke out into
expostulation at the unnecessary delay.
"What's the matter?" asked the man in a gentle, almost grieved tone.
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