The catastrophe happened when they were climbing the cinder-slope and
within two hundred yards of the little station. Simeon was propelling
with all his might, and he propelled the wheel against half a brick. The
wheel collapsed. There was a splintering even of the main timbers of the
vehicle as the immense weight of the trunk crashed to the solid earth.
Simeon fell, and rose with difficulty, standing on one leg, and terribly
grimacing.
He said nothing, but consulted his watch by the aid of a fusee.
"We must carry it," Arthur suggested wildly.
"We can't carry it up here. It's much too heavy."
Arthur remembered the tremendous weight of even his share of it as they
had slid it down the stairs.
No. It could not be carried.
"Besides," said Simeon, "I've sprained my ankle, I fear." And he sat
down on the trunk.
"What are we to do?" Arthur asked tragically.
"Do? Why, it's perfectly simple! You must go without me. Anyhow, run to
the station, and try to get the porter down here with another barrow."
Man of infinite calm, of infinite resource. Though the pincers and the
anvil were horribly torturing him at that moment, Arthur could not but
admire his younger brother's astounding _sangfroid_.
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