Toby gazed around, half challengingly and half nervously—­it was conceivable that he might be recognized, or might recognize.  But no!  Not a soul in the vast, swaying, preoccupied, luggage-laden crowds gave him a glance.  As for him, although he fully recognized nobody, yet nearly every face seemed to be half-familiar.  He climbed into a second-class compartment when the train drew up, and ten other people, all with third-class tickets, followed his example; three persons were already seated therein.  The compartment was illuminated by one lamp, and in the Bleakridge Tunnel this lamp expired.  Everything reminded him of his youth.

In twenty minutes he was leaving Turnhill station and entering the town.  It was about nine o’clock, and colder than winters of the period usually are.  The first thing he saw was an electric tram, and the second thing he saw was another electric tram.  In Toby’s time there were no trams at Turnhill, and the then recently-introduced steam-trams between Bursley and Longshaw, long since superseded, were regarded as the final marvel of science as applied to traction.  And now there were electric trams at Turnhill!  The railway renewed his youth, but this darting electricity showed him how old he was.  The Town Hall, which was brand-new when he left Turnhill, had the look of a mediaeval hotel de ville as he examined it in the glamour of the corporation’s incandescent gas.  And it was no more the sole impressive pile in the borough.  The High Street and its precincts abounded in impressive piles.  He did not know precisely what they were, but they had the appearance of being markets, libraries, baths, and similar haunts of luxury; one was a bank.  He thought that Turnhill High Street compared very well with Derby.  He would have preferred it to be less changed.  If the High Street was thus changed, everything would be changed, including Child Row.  The sole phenomenon that recalled his youth (except the Town Hall) was the peculiar smell of oranges and apples floating out on the frosty air from holly-decorated greengrocers’ shops.

He passed through the Market Square, noting that sinister freak, the Jubilee Tower, and came to Child Row.  The first building on your right as you enter Child Row from the square is the Primitive Methodist Chapel.  Yes, it was still there; Primitive Methodism had not failed in Turnhill because Toby Hall had deserted the cause three-and-twenty years ago!  But something serious had happened to the structure.  Gradually Toby realized that its old face had been taken out and a new one put in, the classic pillars had vanished, and a series of Gothic arches had been substituted by way of portico; a pretty idea, but not to Toby’s liking.  It was another change, another change!  He crossed the street and proceeded downwards in the obscurity, and at length halted and peered with his little blue eyes at a small house (one of twins) on the other side from where he stood.  That house, at any rate, was unchanged.  It was a two-storeyed house, with a semicircular fanlight over a warped door of grained panelling.  The blind of the window to the left of the door was irradiated from within, proving habitation.