the train collectin' the halves o' their return tickets. 'What's the
name o' this station?' asks my blind friend, very mild an' polite.
'Gwinear Road,' answers the porter;' Penzance next stop.' Somehow
this gave him the notion that they were nearly arrived, an' so, you
see, when the train slowed down a few minutes later an' came to a
stop, he took the porter at his word, an' stepped out. Simple,
wasn't it? But in my experience the curiousest things in life are
the simplest of all, once you come to inquire into 'em."

"What I don't understand," said I, "is how the train came to stop
just there."

Mr. Tucker gazed at me rather in sorrow than in anger. "I thought,"
said he, "'twas agreed I should tell the story in my own way.
Well, as I was saying, we got those poor fellas there, all as naked
as Adam, an' we was helpin' them all we could--some of us wringin'
out their underlinen an' spreading it to dry, others collectin' their
hats, an' tryin' which fitted which, an' others even dredgin' the
pool for their handbags an' spectacles an' other small articles, an'
in the middle of it someone started to laugh. You'll scarce believe
it, but up to that moment there hadn't been so much as a smile to
hand round; an' to this day I don't know the man's name that started
it--for all I can tell you, I did it myself. But this I do know,
that it set off the whole gang like a motor-engine. There was a sort
of 'click,' an' the next moment--

"Laugh? I never heard men laugh like it in my born days. Sort of
recoil, I s'pose it must ha' been, after the shock. Laugh?
There was men staggerin' drunk with it and there was men rollin' on
the turf with it; an' there was men cryin' with it, holdin' on to a