r stars.

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 again