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 unpununctuality 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. She gave her luggage to a porter and showed him her ticket. To her horror he said that she was two hours too early. 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, but he said that it only stopped there to take on water, not passengers. So she sat down to wait for the train which was coming in four hours' time. She had been told that her train was the one which left at five o'clock. When she arrived at the station, she found that her train had already left. She had missed it by a few minutes. This was the first time that she had ever been on her own, and she was very frightened. She did not know what to do. She could not go back to her parents because she had no money with her. She could not stay at the station because it was too cold. She could not go to the friends' house because she did not know where it was. She had to make a decision. She decided to go to a hotel. She found a hotel near the station and went in. She asked for a room. The hotel clerk looked at her and said that she was too young to stay in a hotel alone. She showed him her ticket and told him that she was waiting for a train. He said that she could wait in the lobby. So she sat down in the lobby and waited for the train. She waited for four hours. When the train arrived, she got on it. She was very tired and very cold. She had a very bad experience.