CHAPTER XII
THE TRIUMPH OF MR. ELGEE POTTS
We left for Delhi next day. The departure of Berengaria was exciting to herself and to everybody else anywhere near by. It took the united efforts of John, an ayah, six chaprassis, and various other dusky, ill-clad bodies to accomplish it. But we were off at last, and the train was not more than an hour late. Berengaria said that that was lucky as it was often much later than that on branch lines in India. We were to get to Bandalnagger at five o'clock that afternoon, where we joined the main line, and we were due at Delhi at the unbecoming hour of six o'clock next morning, though from all accounts we were not likely to arrive there anything like as early as that. The block in the traffic, they told us, all along the line was awful. Even that branch line, where nothing ever happened, felt it. It did its best to buck up, and actually succeeded in landing us at Bandalnagger Junction only two hours and fifteen minutes late.
There we had dinner at the refreshment-room—a huge long dinner of many courses, very solid, and
