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was the only junior porter on duty and the long list of instructions which was pinned up daily in the office had at first completely floored him. There was so much to do! He worked from half-past seven to five, or half past ten to eight, and how he worked! His normal, everyday duties were to clean the waiting room, lay and light the fire, clean the ticket office and the stationmaster’s small lair, clean and mop down both the ladies’ and the gents’ toilets, brush the platform, clean all the windows and keep everywhere tidy. Then there were the additional jobs such as posting bills, carting mail bags, getting milk churns on and off the trains and, of course, helping any passenger who needed assistance, running errands for the engine drivers and opening and closing train doors at the appropriate moments. On top of everything else came the deliveries. Anything sent to the station by rail had to be hand-delivered to its ultimate destination, and this could be as far as eight miles away. Toby blessed his kind landlady and her husband’s old bicycle, for though he had to push it up many steep hills he could also coast down the other side, and it undoubtedly saved him a good deal of time.
    In addition to these tasks, it was a junior porter’s job to fill the signal lamps with paraffin and take them to and from the signal box, and thus it was that Toby became friendly with John Giles, the signalman at Wateringford. Sometimes, John and Toby would sit in the cosy box and John would show his new friend how to work the levers. Toby loved his work but thought that it would be just grand to be a signalman and decided that, if the opportunity ever occurred, he would apply for such a job.
    Now, Toby bent to pick up the empty trug in which he had carried the last of the chrysanthemum plants and turned back towards the station buildings just as his ears caught a faint and distant whistle. He did not need to glance at the clock above the waiting room to know that he was hearing the approach of the ten–past eleven express, and because he was still interested in the glamour of the mighty engines he stood where he was, pushing his cap to the back of his head with one earth-smeared finger, to watch the train as it thundered through.
    As soon as it had gone, its tail disappearing round the bend, he turned and made his way back to the small shed where Mr Tolliver kept the gardening equipment. Toby was not on duty today but had chosen to come in to do the flower bed. His replacement was Joe, who was presently engaged in cleaning out the waiting room. Joe did not care for gardening, though he was quick enough to help a passenger with heavy luggage because this invariably meant a tip and Joe was saving up to buy himself a new bicycle. Though he disliked manual labour, he was by no means lazy since he pedalled everywhere at a good speed. He belonged to a cycling club and during his summer holiday had cycled all the way down to Land’s End in Cornwall. That was the main reason for his wanting a new bicycle, for the existing one had barely made it back to Joe’s cottage, and though Joe still used it for work you could hear him coming a hundred yards off, squeaking and rattling as he forced the poor old machine to do speeds for which it was never intended. Joe had a lady friend who worked at the nearby hall as a kitchen maid and she had promised Joe a small sum towards his bicycle fund when his birthday came round.
    Toby stacked the tools in the small shed, having first cleaned and oiled them thoroughly, for Mr Tolliver was fussy about his gardening implements. Then he strolled over to the stationmaster’s office. Thinking about Joe’s young lady had reminded him of Seraphina and remembering Seraphina had put him in mind of the fact that he had still not told her about his change of job. She would write to him care of his landlady in Leeds, and though he had asked that lady to forward any letters which might come