Bosom Friends

IT was a broiling day at the end of July, and the railway station at Tiverton Junctionwas crowded with passengers. Porters wheeling great truckfuls of luggage strove toforce a way along the thronged platform, anxious mothers held restless childrenfirmly by the hand, harassed fathers sought to pack their families into alreadyoverflowing compartments, excited cyclists were endeavouring to disentangle theirmachines from among the piles of boxes and portmanteaus, a circus and atheatrical company were loud in their lamentations for certain reserved corridorcarriages which had not arrived, while a patient band of Sunday-school teacherswas struggling to keep together a large party of slum children bound for a sea-sidecamp. The noise was almost unbearable. The ceaseless whistling of the engines, theshouts of the porters, the banging of carriage doors, the eager inquiries ofcountless perplexed passengers, made a combination calculated to give a headacheto the owner of the stoutest nerves, and to drive timid travellers to distraction. Allthe world seemed off for its holiday, and the bustle and confusion of its departurewas nearly enough to make some sober-minded parents wish they had stayed athome.