says in the poetry book about sharper than a serpent it is to
have a toothless child--but it means ungrateful when it says toothless.
Miss Lowe told me so."

"All right," said Peter, impatiently, "I'm sorry. THERE! Now will you
come on?"

They reached the station and spent a joyous two hours with the Porter.
He was a worthy man and seemed never tired of answering the questions
that begin with "Why--" which many people in higher ranks of life often
seem weary of.

He told them many things that they had not known before--as, for
instance, that the things that hook carriages together are called
couplings, and that the pipes like great serpents that hang over the
couplings are meant to stop the train with.

"If you could get a holt of one o' them when the train is going and pull
'em apart," said he, "she'd stop dead off with a jerk."

"Who's she?" said Phyllis.

"The train, of course," said the Porter. After that the train was never
again 'It' to the children.

"And you know the thing in the carriages where it says on it, 'Five
pounds' fine for improper use.' If you was to improperly use that, the
train 'ud stop."

"And if you used it properly?" said Roberta.

"It 'ud stop just the same, I suppose," said he, "but it isn't proper
use unless you're being murdered. There was an old lady once--someone
kidded her on it was a refreshment-room bell, and she used it improper,
not being in danger of her life, though hungry, and when the train
stopped and the guard came along expecting to find someone weltering in
their last moments, she says, 'Oh, please, Mister, I'll take a glass of
stout and a bath bun,' she says. And the train was seven minutes behind
her time as it was."

"What did the guard say to the old lady?"

"_I_ dunno," replied the Porter, "but I lay she didn't forget it in a
hurry, whatever it was."

In such delightful conversation the time went by all too quickly.

The Station Master came out once or twice from that sacred inner temple
behind the place where the hole is that they sell you tickets through,
and was most jolly with them all.

"Just as if coal had never been discovered," Phyllis whispered to her
sister.

He gave them each an orange, and promised to take them up into the
signal-box one of these days, when he wasn't so busy.

Several trains went through the station, and Peter noticed for the first
time that engines have numbers on them, like cabs.

"Yes," said the Porter, "I knowed a yo