n trees on both sides.

Phyllis drew a long breath.

"I'll never go into a tunnel again as long as ever I live," said she,
"not if there are twenty hundred thousand millions hounds inside with
red jerseys and their legs broken."

"Don't be a silly cuckoo," said Peter, as usual. "You'd HAVE to."

"I think it was very brave and good of me," said Phyllis.

"Not it," said Peter; "you didn't go because you were brave, but because
Bobbie and I aren't skunks. Now where's the nearest house, I wonder? You
can't see anything here for the trees."

"There's a roof over there," said Phyllis, pointing down the line.

"That's the signal-box," said Peter, "and you know you're not allowed to
speak to signalmen on duty. It's wrong."

"I'm not near so afraid of doing wrong as I was of going into that
tunnel," said Phyllis. "Come on," and she started to run along the line.
So Peter ran, too.

It was very hot in the sunshine, and both children were hot and
breathless by the time they stopped, and bending their heads back to
look up at the open windows of the signal-box, shouted "Hi!" as loud
as their breathless state allowed. But no one answered. The signal-box
stood quiet as an empty nursery, and the handrail of its steps was hot
to the hands of the children as they climbed softly up. They peeped
in at the open door. The signalman was sitting on a chair tilted back
against the wall. His head leaned sideways, and his mouth was open. He
was fast asleep.

"My hat!" cried Peter; "wake up!" And he cried it in a terrible voice,
for he knew that if a signalman sleeps on duty, he risks losing his
situation, let alone all the other dreadful risks to trains which expect
him to tell them when it is safe for them to go their ways.

The signalman never moved. Then Peter sprang to him and shook him. And
slowly, yawning and stretching, the man awoke. But the moment he WAS
awake he leapt to his feet, put his hands to his head "like a mad
maniac," as Phyllis said afterwards, and shouted:--

"Oh, my heavens--what's o'clock?"

"Twelve thirteen," said Peter, and indeed it was by the white-faced,
round-faced clock on the wall of the signal-box.

The man looked at the clock, sprang to the levers, and wrenched them
this way and that. An electric bell tingled--the wires and cranks
creaked, and the man threw himself into a chair. He was very pale,
and the sweat stood on his forehead "like large dewdrops on a white
cabbage," as Phyllis remarked lat