For the consumptive she
said, "Open the windows, rest, and don't spit"; but that isn't a
peasant's idea of doctoring: they want medicine or magic, one or the
other, which doesn't matter.
The train started "after eight" on Monday evening. The English boys at
the Rest house were very good to us, adding to our small stock of
necessities a "Tommy's treasure," two mackintosh capes, and some oxo
cubes. One youth said, "You won't want to travel a second time on a
Serbian luggage train"; then ruefully, "I've done it! The shunting,
phew!"
A Serbian railway station is a public meeting-place; along the platform,
but railed off from the train, is a restaurant which is one of the
favourite cafes of the town. It is such fun to the still childish
Serbian mind to sit sipping beer or wine and watch the trains run about,
and hear the whistles. We had our supper amongst the gay crowd, and
then pushed out into the darkened goods station to find our travelling
bedroom, for we were to sleep in the waggons--beds and mattresses having
been provided--and we had borrowed blankets from the Rest house.
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