The pincers
and the anvil were gone for ever. Simeon turned gingerly into Pollard
Street-half-way to the station. They had but to descend Pollard Street
and climb the path across the cinder-heaps beyond, and they would be, as
it were, in harbour. In Pollard Street Simeon had the happy idea of
taking to the roadway. It was rougher, and, therefore, less dangerous,
than the pavement. At intervals he shoved the wheel of the barrow by
main force over a stone.
"Put my hat straight, will you?" he asked of Arthur, and Arthur obeyed.
It was becoming a task under the winter stars.
Then Arthur happened to notice the wheel of the barrow--its sole wheel.
"I say," he said, "what's up with that wheel?"
"It's rocky, that's what that wheel is," replied Simeon. "I hope it will
hold out."
Instead of pushing the barrow he was now holding it back, down the slant
of Pollard Street. The mist had cleared. And Arthur could see the red
gleam of a signal in the neighbourhood of the station. But now the
pincers and the anvil were at him again, for Simeon's tone was alarming.
It indicated that the wobbling wheel of the barrow might not hold out.
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