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    Lesson 60 Too Early and Too Late

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    Grace Xie
    The young girl missed the train because she misread the train schedule that her father had written down for her. When she arrived at the station 20 minutes before the scheduled departure, the porter informed her that the train she was waiting for only stopped to take on mail and did not take passengers at that time. The station master produced the official timetable which had a small "o" next to the train time indicating it was a non-passenger stop. Despite her pleas, the girl was not allowed to board the train as it departed and had to wait for the next one due to the scheduling mistake.

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    Lesson 60 Too Early and Too Late

    Uploaded by

    Grace Xie
    45 views5 pages
    The young girl missed the train because she misread the train schedule that her father had written down for her. When she arrived at the station 20 minutes before the scheduled departure, the porter informed her that the train she was waiting for only stopped to take on mail and did not take passengers at that time. The station master produced the official timetable which had a small "o" next to the train time indicating it was a non-passenger stop. Despite her pleas, the girl was not allowed to board the train as it departed and had to wait for the next one due to the scheduling mistake.

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    The young girl missed the train because she misread the train schedule that her father had written down for her. When she arrived at the station 20 minutes before the scheduled departure, the porter informed her that the train she was waiting for only stopped to take on mail and did not take passengers at that time. The station master produced the official timetable which had a small "o" next to the train time indicating it was a non-passenger stop. Despite her pleas, the girl was not allowed to board the train as it departed and had to wait for the next one due to the scheduling mistake.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    45 views5 pages

    Lesson 60 Too Early and Too Late

    Uploaded by

    Grace Xie
    The young girl missed the train because she misread the train schedule that her father had written down for her. When she arrived at the station 20 minutes before the scheduled departure, the porter informed her that the train she was waiting for only stopped to take on mail and did not take passengers at that time. The station master produced the official timetable which had a small "o" next to the train time indicating it was a non-passenger stop. Despite her pleas, the girl was not allowed to board the train as it departed and had to wait for the next one due to the scheduling mistake.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
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    Lesson 60 Too early and too late

    Lesson 60 Too early and too late


    60

    Listen to the tape then answer the question below

    Why did the young girl miss the train

    Punctuality is a necessary habit in all public affairs in civilized society.

    Without it, nothing could ever be brought to a conclusion; everything


    would be in a state of chaos.

    Only in a sparsely-populated rural community is it possible to disregard


    it.

    In ordinary living, there can be some tolerance of unpunctuality.

    The intellectual, who is working on some abstruse problem, has


    everything coordinated and organized for the matter in hand.

    He is therefore forgiven if late for a dinner party.

    But people are often reproached for unpunctuality when their only fault
    is cutting things fine.

    It is hard for energetic, quick-minded people to waste time, so they are


    often tempted to finish a job before setting out to keep an appointment.

    If no accidents occur on the way, like punctured tyres, diversions of


    traffic, sudden descent of fog, they will be on time.

    They are often more industrious, useful citizens than those who are
    never late.

    The over-punctual can be as much a trial to others as the unpunctual.

    The guest who arrives half an hour too soon is the greatest nuisance.

    Some friends of my family had this irritating habit.

    The only thing to do was ask them to come half an hour later than the
    other guests.

    Then they arrived just when we wanted them.

    If you are catching a train, it is always better to be comfortably early


    than even a fraction of a minute too late.
    Although being early may mean wasting a little time, this will be less
    than if you miss the train and have to wait an hour or more for the next
    one; and you avoid the frustration of arriving at the very moment when
    the train is drawing out of the station and being unable to get on it.

    An even harder situation is to be on the platform in good time for a train


    and still to see it go off without you.

    Such an experience befell a certain young girl the first time she was
    travelling alone.

    She entered the station twenty minutes before the train was due, since
    her parents had impressed upon her that it would be unforgivable to
    miss it and cause the friends with whom she was going to stay to make
    two journeys to meet her.
    20

    She gave her luggage to a porter and showed him her ticket.

    To her horror he said that she was two hours too soon.

    She felt in her handbag for the piece of paper on which her father had
    written down all the details of the journey and gave it to the porter.
    He agreed that a train did come into the station at the time on the paper
    and that it did stop, but only to take on mail, not passengers.

    The girl asked to see a timetable, feeling sure that her father could not
    have made such a mistake.

    The porter went to fetch one and arrived back with the station master,
    who produced it with a flourish and pointed out a microscopic 'o' beside
    the time of the arrival of the train at his station; this little 'o' indicated
    that the train only stopped for mail.

    Just as that moment the train came into the station.

    The girl, tears streaming down her face, begged to be allowed to slip into
    the guard's van.

    But the station master was adamant: rules could not be broken.

    And she had to watch that train disappear towards her destination
    while she was left behind.

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