His thoughts wandered from one trivial matter to another, always eluding his effort to fix them.

He found himself acutely studying the gang of laborers who were going by train to their day's work, and wondering how many pipes each of their carefully guarded matches would light, and what each carried in his battered tin drinking-bottle, remembering with a dreary sort of amusement that he had heard this same incurable littleness of thought settled on men condemned to death.

Still, it passed the time, and he was surprised out of a sort of reverie by the clanging of the porter's inharmonious bell.
At the same moment a phaeton was rapidly driven up to the door of the station, and all the porters rushed to meet it.
"Label it all for London," he heard Eugene's voice say.

"Four boxes, a portmanteau, and a hat-box.

No, I'm not going--this lady and gentleman." Kate, Haddington, and Eugene came through the ticket-office on to the platform.