otten! 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 the hill into space. And although
Arthur Cotterill knew Trafalgar Road as well as Mrs Hopkins knew the
hundred and twenty-first Psalm, the effect of the scene on him was most
uncanny. He watched Simeon persuade the loaded barrow down the step into
the tiny front garden, not daring to help him, because Simeon did not
like to be helped by clumsy people in delicate operations. Mrs Hopkins
was rapidly pour