d.

Then Simeon put on a dressing-gown and padded out of the room, and
Arthur heard him knock at another door and call:

"Mrs Hopkins, Mrs Hopkins!" And then the sound of a door opening.

"She was dressed and just going downstairs," said Simeon when he
returned to their bedroom. "Breakfast ready in ten minutes. She set the
table last night. I told her to."

"Good!" Arthur murmured.

At sixteen minutes past six they were both dressed, and Simeon was
showing Arthur that Simeon alone knew how to pack a trunk. At twenty
minutes past six the trunk was packed, locked and strapped.

"What about getting the confounded thing downstairs?" Arthur asked.

"When the porter comes," said Simeon, "he and I will do that. It's too
heavy for you to handle."

At six twenty-one they were having breakfast in the little dining-room,
by the heat of another gas-stove. And Arthur felt that all was well, and
that in postponing their departure till that morning in order not to
upset the immemorial Christmas dinner of their Aunt Sarah, they had done
rightly. At half-past six they had, between them, drunk five cups of tea
and eaten four eggs, four slices of bacon, and about a pound and a half
of bread. Simeon, with what was surely an exaggeration of
imperturbability, charged his pipe, and began to smoke. They had forty
minutes in which to catch the Loop-Line train, even if it was prompt.
There would then be forty minutes to wait at Knype for the London
express, which arrived at Euston considerably before noon. After which
there would be a clear ninety minutes before the business itself--and
less than a quarter of a mile to walk! Yes, there was a rich and
generous margin for all conceivable delays and accidents.

"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 forg