Page:The railway children (IA railwaychildren00nesb 1).pdf/50

 apart to serve as the stepping stones in a game of foaming torrents hastily organised by Bobbie.

Then to arrive at the station, not through the booking office, but in a freebooting sort of way by the sloping end of the platform. This in itself was joy.

Joy, too, it was to peep into the porter's room, where the lamps are, and the Railway almanac on the wall, and one porter half asleep behind Lloyd's Weekly News.

There were a great many crossing lines at the station; some of them just ran into a yard and stopped short, as though they were tired of business and meant to retire for good. Trucks stood on the rails here, and on one side was a great heap of coal—not a loose heap, such as you see in your coal cellar, but a sort of solid building of coals, with large square blocks of coal outside used just as though they were brick, and built up till the heap looked like the picture of the Cities of the Plain in "Bible Stories for Infants." There was a line of whitewash near the top of the coaly wall.

When, presently, the porter lounged out of his room at the twice-repeated tingling thrill of a gong over the station door, Peter said, "How do