Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/191

Rh purchase the latest copy of the "Barham Mercury and Poynton Gazette," he must do so elsewhere than at the Barham Station. His train was already due; and, while he was debating whether he should have time to make his way to an inn that he had passed, not far from the station—the same inn that had supplied Dr. Dustacre with the chaise—and there have a glass of beer, the ticket-taker told him, in answer to his inquiry, that the up-train would not be in for at least an hour; for, the line was blocked further up.

"Not a serious accident, I hope?" inquired Mr. Bouncer.

"Oh, no," was the prompt reply; "only a coal run into a cattle." Experience had taught him to look on these events with official calm.

Now, it would be wearisome to pass at least an hour of unavoidable delay at so uninteresting a place as the Barham Station. There were the usual notices and time-tables hanging in frames on the wall; but, the mind would soon be fatigued with attempting to unravel the wild enigmas of "Bradshaw," or spelling out the large-lettered advertisements of somebody's Cocoa and some one else's Tea. There was a waiting-room, it was true; but, it was not inviting, with its hard benches and its haggard and dirty aspect, as though it had sat up ever so many nights, and had not washed itself in the morning. There was nothing else, except the impenetrable wooden screen that concealed from view the form of the ticket-taker; but, as he was a youth of fourteen, with an unwholesome face, and an appearance of having lived chiefly on pickles, the screen was a merciful interposition, more especially at such times as the ticket-taker's wooden window was tightly closed. There was nothing, in short,