at the station would laugh at him for arriving more than half-an-hour
before any train was due. For a moment he decided to turn away and
walk in some other direction until some of the time had passed, but
the seats on the platform looked very restful, and the platform,
bathed in the soft afternoon sunshine, looked wonderfully peaceful
and inviting. There was not a sign of life, or a sound or a
movement, except that of the little breeze ruffling the young leaves
on the chestnuts in the road outside.

"I'll explain to Mr. Simmons that I come early so as to be able to
tell him about the little maid, while he'd got a few spare minutes
before the train came in," he decided, and, with a sigh of relief,
made his way into the station. He was tired after his exciting, busy
day, and glad to sit down alone, to think over all that the day had
brought them, and was likely to bring them.

Mr. Simmons, the station-master, must have been tired too, though his
day had been neither busy nor exciting, for when at last he did
appear, he was stretching and yawning as though the nap he had been
having in his office had not been quite long enough for him.

When he saw Thomas his eye brightened, and he joined him at once, for
he dearly loved a gossip, and he had in his mind a long story that he
was impatient to pour out to somebody. The story was so long and so
interesting that the whistle of the fast-approaching train was heard
long before it was ended, and of his own story Thomas had not been
able to tell a word.

"Is that the London train?" he asked eagerly, starting to his feet.