CHAPTER 21 – TRAINS

“Good morning,” said the little prince.

“Good morning,” said the man who worked at the railway station.

“What do you do here?” the little prince asked.

“I change the direction of the trains,” said the man. “I send some trains to the right, some trains to the left.

And at that moment an express train shook the man cabin when it passed it at high speed.

“They are in a great hurry,” said the little prince. “What are they looking for?”

“Nobody knows that,” said the man.

And a second express train passed them, in the opposite direction.

“Are they coming back already?” asked the little prince.

“They’re not the same,” said the man. “These are different people. They’re coming back.”

“They weren’t satisfied where they were?”

“People are never satisfied where they are,” said the man.

And a third express train passed them.

“Do they want to catch the first travellers?” asked the little prince.

“They don’t want to catch anybody,” said the man. “They’re sleeping or they’re looking outside the windows. Only the children are pressing their noses against the windows.”

“Only the children know what they are looking for,” said the little prince. “They use their time to play with toys, and the toys become very important to them. And if anybody takes the toys away from them, they cry.”

“They’re lucky,” the man said.

The little prince continued on his journey.

“Good morning,” said the little prince when he met a businessman.

“Good morning,” said the businessman. He was a businessman who sold pills which helped you when you were thirsty. If you swallowed one pill a week, you wouldn’t feel any need to drink.

“Why are you selling these pills?” asked the little prince.

“Because they save a lot of time,” said the businessman. “Experts calculated that these pills can save fifty-three minutes a week.”

“And what do you do with those fifty-three minutes?”

“Whatever you like.”

“If I had extra fifty-three minutes,” the little prince said to himself, “I would walk very slowly to a fountain.”