“Really!”

“That’s what he says every minute of the time that he’s at home.”

When Mavis left Mrs Farthing to walk to the station, she could not help noticing how the rough and tumble of her experiences had had a hardening effect upon her once soft heart.  It was not so long ago that, although presumption on a landlady’s part would have goaded Mavis into making an apposite retort, she would have bitterly regretted the pain that her words may have inflicted.  Now, she was indifferent to any annoyance that she may have caused Mrs Farthing.  If anything, she was rather pleased with herself for having shown the woman her place.

It was something of an experience for Mavis to spend the evening in the sitting-room of a country railway station.  Stillness violently alternated with the roar and rush of the trains.  Mr Medlicott spent his spare time in the sitting-room, where his eyes never deserted the faded, uncanny-looking cabinet piano, which spread its expanse of faded green silk at one end of the room.

Mavis noticed his preoccupation.

“I wonder if you would do me a favour?” she asked.

“And what might that be?”

“If you would sing?”

“Delighted!” he cried, as he excitedly sprang to his feet.

“How nice of you!”

“Stay!  What about the accompaniment?”

“I can manage that.”

“At sight?”

“I think so.”

“You’re an acquisition to Melkbridge.  There’s one other thing.”

“I knew you’d disappoint me.  What is it?”

“The 7.53,” replied the station-master, looking at his watch.  “It’s almost due.”

“We can make a start,” suggested Mavis.

Mr Medlicott quickly produced a collection of old-fashioned ballads, the covers of many of which were decorated with strange, pictorial devices.

“Stay!  What say to ’Primrose Farm’?”

“Anything, so long as you sing,” replied Mavis.

Mr Medlicott delightedly cleared his throat.  It did not take Mavis long to discover that the station-master had little ear for music; he sang flat, although Mavis did her best to assist him by including in her accompaniment the notes of the vocal score.  The song was no sooner concluded than the station-master caught up his braided cap and ran downstairs to meet the 7.53.  Upon his return, he sang many songs.  No sooner was one ended than he commenced another; they were only interrupted by the arrival of trains.

The room became insupportably hot.  During one of Mr Medlicott’s absences, Mavis asked his wife if she might open the window that overlooked the platform.  Where Mavis sat by it, she could see Mr Medlicott performing his duties below.  Once or twice, she fancied her ear caught strange sounds, which could be heard above the shouts of the porters and the noises of escaping steam; they proceeded from where Mr Medlicott stood.  The noises became more insistent, when it occurred to Mavis that the station-master was taking advantage of the din to practise the more uncertain of his notes.