The biscuit thief

AT THE STATION

Well, it’s like one of those stories, except that it actually happened, and I know it actually happened, because the person it actually happened to was me’

I had a train to catch’ Author continued.  “I arrived at the station.  I was about twenty minutes early.  I’d got the time of the train wrong.  So I bought a newspaper, to do the crossword, and went to the buffet to get a cup of coffee.  I also bought some biscuits.  Laden with all these new possessions, I go and sit at a table. 

So let me give you the layout.  Me sitting at the table.  On my left, the newspaper.  On my right, the cup of coffee.  In the middle of the table, the packet of biscuits.  Sitting opposite me, is a guy sitting at the table already.

He was perfectly ordinary.  Briefcase. Business suit.  He didn’t look as if he was about to do anything weird.

Then he did this.  He leaned across the table, picked up the packet of biscuits, tore it open, took one out, and ... ate it!

Well, in the circumstances I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do.  I was compelled to ignore it.  It’s not the sort of thing you’re trained for is it?  I searched my soul, and discovered that there was nothing anywhere in my upbringing, experience or even primal instincts to tell me how to react to someone who has quite simply, calmly, sitting right there in front of me, stolen one of my biscuits.

I stared furiously at the crossword, couldn’t do a single clue, took a sip of coffee, it was too hot to drink, so there was nothing for it.  I braced myself.  I took a biscuit, trying very hard not to notice that the packet was already mysteriously open...

I ate the biscuit.  I ate it very deliberately and visibly, so that he would have no doubt as to what it was I was doing.  When I eat a biscuit. it stays eaten.

So what did he do?  Took another one.  Honestly, this is exactly what happened.  He took another biscuit, he ate it.  Clear as daylight.  And the problem was that having not said anything the fist time, it was somehow even more difficult to broach the subject the second time around.  What do you say?  “Excuse me... I couldn’t help noticing, er...”  Doesn’t work.  No I ignored it with, if anything, even more vigor than previously.

Stared at the crossword, again, still couldn’t budge a bit of it, so showing some of the spirit that Henry V did on St. Crispin’s Day... I went into the breach again.  I took another biscuit.  And for an instant our eyes met. Just for an instant.  And we both looked away.  But I am here to tell you that there was a little electricity in the air.  There was a little tension building up over the table.  At about this time.

We went through the whole packet like this.  Him, me, him, me...  Well it was only eight biscuits but it seemed like a lifetime of biscuits we were getting through at this point.  When the empty packet was lying dead between us the man at last got up, having done his worst, and left.  I heaved a sigh of relief, of course.  As it happened, my train was announced a moment or two later, so I finished my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper... were my biscuits.

- Author Dent from ‘The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’ by Douglas Adams