“The porter ought to be coming,” said Simeon.  It was twenty minutes to seven, and he was brushing his hat.

Now such a remark from that personification of calm, that living denial of worry, Simeon, was decidedly unsettling to Arthur.  By chance, Mrs Hopkins came into the room just then to assure herself that the young men whose house she kept desired nothing.

“Mrs Hopkins,” Simeon asked, “you didn’t forget to call at the station last night?”

“Oh no, Mr Simeon,” said she; “I saw the second porter, Merrith.  He knows me.  At least, I know his mother—­known her forty year—­and he promised me he wouldn’t forget.  Besides, he never has forgot, has he?  I told him particular to bring his barrow.”

It was true the porter never had forgotten!  And many times had he transported Simeon’s luggage to Bleakridge Station.  Simeon did a good deal of commercial travelling for the firm of A. & S. Cotterill, teapot makers, Bursley.  In many commercial hotels he was familiarly known as Teapot Cotterill.

The brothers were reassured by Mrs Hopkins.  There was half an hour to the time of the train—­and the station only ten minutes off.  Then the chiming clock in the hall struck the third quarter.

“That clock right?” Arthur nervously inquired, assuming his overcoat.

“It’s a minute late,” said Simeon, assuming his overcoat.

And at that word “late,” the pincers and the anvil revisited Arthur.  Even the confidence of Mrs Hopkins in the porter was shaken.  Arthur looked at Simeon, depending on him.  It was imperative that they should catch the train, and it was imperative that the trunk should catch the train.  Everything depended on a porter.  Arthur felt that all his future career, his happiness, his honour, his life depended on a porter.  And, after all, even porters at a pound a week are human.  Therefore, Arthur looked at Simeon.

Simeon walked through the kitchen into the backyard.  In a shed there an old barrow was lying.  He drew out the barrow, and ticklishly wheeled it into the house, as far as the foot of the stairs.

“Mrs Hopkins,” he called.  “And you too!” he glanced at Arthur.

“What are you going to do?” Arthur demanded.

“Wheel the trunk to the station myself, of course,” Simeon replied.  “If we meet the porter on the way, so much the better for us ... and so much the worse for him!” he added.

II

It was just as dark as though it had been midnight—­dark and excessively cold; not a ray of hope in the sky; not a sign of life in the street.  All Bursley, and, indeed, all the Five Towns, were sleeping off the various consequences of Christmas on the human frame.  Trafalgar Road, with its double row of lamps, each exactly like that one in front of the house of the Cotterills, stretched downwards into the dead heart of Bursley, and upwards over the brow of