Then Arthur happened to notice the wheel of the barrow—­its sole wheel.

“I say,” he said, “what’s up with that wheel?”

“It’s rocky, that’s what that wheel is,” replied Simeon.  “I hope it will hold out.”

Instead of pushing the barrow he was now holding it back, down the slant of Pollard Street.  The mist had cleared.  And Arthur could see the red gleam of a signal in the neighbourhood of the station.  But now the pincers and the anvil were at him again, for Simeon’s tone was alarming.  It indicated that the wobbling wheel of the barrow might not hold out.

The catastrophe happened when they were climbing the cinder-slope and within two hundred yards of the little station.  Simeon was propelling with all his might, and he propelled the wheel against half a brick.  The wheel collapsed.  There was a splintering even of the main timbers of the vehicle as the immense weight of the trunk crashed to the solid earth.

Simeon fell, and rose with difficulty, standing on one leg, and terribly grimacing.

He said nothing, but consulted his watch by the aid of a fusee.

“We must carry it,” Arthur suggested wildly.

“We can’t carry it up here.  It’s much too heavy.”

Arthur remembered the tremendous weight of even his share of it as they had slid it down the stairs.

No.  It could not be carried.

“Besides,” said Simeon, “I’ve sprained my ankle, I fear.”  And he sat down on the trunk.

“What are we to do?” Arthur asked tragically.

“Do?  Why, it’s perfectly simple!  You must go without me.  Anyhow, run to the station, and try to get the porter down here with another barrow.”

Man of infinite calm, of infinite resource.  Though the pincers and the anvil were horribly torturing him at that moment, Arthur could not but admire his younger brother’s astounding sangfroid.

And he set off.

“Here!” Simeon called him peremptorily.  “Take this—­in case you don’t come back.”

And he handed him the small bright object.

“But I must come back.  I can’t possibly go without the trunk.  All my things are in it.”

“I know that, man. But perhaps you’ll have to go without it.  Hurry!”

Arthur ran.  He encountered the senior porter at the gate of the station.

“Where’s Merrith?” he began.  “He was to have—­”

“Merrith’s mother is dead—­died at five o’clock,” said the senior porter.  “And I’m here all alone.”

Arthur stopped as if shot.

“Well,” he recovered himself.  “Lend me a barrow.”

“I shall lend ye no barrow.  It’s against the rules.  Since they transferred our stationmaster to Clegg there’s been an inspector down here welly [well nigh] every day.”

“But I must have a barrow.”

“I shall lend ye no barrow,” said the senior porter, a brute.

A signal close to the signal-box clattered down from red to green.