'Unless you happen to remember the person,' said Dick.
'Or the ticket they get,' said Bob. 'A notable ticket number might do it. I sold a ticket for Todmorden this morning: third- class single, number one, two, three, three. That's a highly interesting ticket.'
'Why?' I said.
George answered for him. 'Because the next one's going to be one, two, three, four, see? Collector's item.'
If George was right, and the wreckers had been aiming at the 8.36, the regular Blackpool express, the train after ours on that day, it might be handy to know who was riding on it. But I would not find out here.
Just then, somebody tapped on the ticket-window glass and George swivelled around to face the customer.
'Good afternoon, Doctor Whittaker,' he said, thrusting his cigar-holding hand down below his counter. 'Second-class return to Bradford?'
At this he gave a sudden kick with both legs and his chair went flying backwards so that he was level with second-class returns to Bradford, or so I supposed. Bob and Dick gave me silly smiles as he did this. George reached across to the rack, and suddenly the ticket was lying in his hand. He had the trick of flicking it from the bottom of the rack. Then, by means of a strange, sitting-down walk, he dragged himself and his chair back to the ticket window, sliding the cigar into its tube as he did so.
'Ninepence, Doctor Whittaker,' he said.
But then he had to lean again towards the window, for the doctor – evidently a regular customer – had further requirements.
'Cycle ticket in addition?' said George. 'That'll be one sixpence, Doctor Whittaker.'
He gave a greater kick this time, sending himself back a good fifteen feet, the cycle ticket being a more out-of-the-way sort of thing than a second-class return, therefore kept further from the window. George took one from the rack, and went back to Doctor Whittaker, who it seemed was not done yet.
'Cycle insurance also?' asked George, quite peeved after listening for a moment at the window.
The doctor then had something else to say – something pretty sharp, too, that I could almost hear through the glass. When the speech had finished, George said: 'It is no trouble at all, sir, only you might have said first time. If you had said, you see, I would have known…'
He shot himself backwards once more, towards bicycle insurance, muttering as he went: 'Not being a great hand at mind-reading.'
When the sale was completed, George wheeled around to us all once more, beaming.
'Quite a card, our George,' said Dick.
Just then there was a knock at the door. It was a kid I'd never seen about the Joint before. 'Any of you blokes come across a photographer?' he said.
Everybody said they hadn't, and the fellow left.
'Rum sort of question,' said George, frowning when the fellow had gone.
On the other side of the room, Bob, who was looking down onto the platforms through one of the windows, gave a cry: 'Hi! She's back!'
George left off fiddling with his cigar and dashed over to the window along with Bob. I walked over more slowly.
'What's going off?' I asked.
'Mrs Emma Knowles,' said Bob, grandly.
'Who's she?' I asked. 'Stationmaster's daughter?'
'Wife!' said George. 'If you can credit it.'
A tank engine was pulling out of platform two and a lady in white was walking along the platform in the opposite direction: little clouds of steam were flying towards her from the engine, like blown kisses. From the ticket-office window I could only see the top of her hat, but some hats promise beauty beneath, and this was one.
'She looks lonely today,' said Bob.
The finest woman in the town' said George very sadly, as he walked back to his rotating chair at the ticket window. 'One day, I'm going to go down there and talk to her.'
'You ought to, George,' said Dick, 'she couldn't eat you, after all.'
'Actually' said George, 'I wouldn't mind a bit if she did, you know?'
'What would you talk to her about?' asked Bob.
'I could put her straight about this show' George said, indicating the whole of the booking office.
'You'd talk to her about railway tickets?' I asked.
'Only at first' said George. 'Just to break the ice.'
Emma Knowles walked on, disappearing under the building in which we stood.
'Oh we do like her,' said Bob, turning away from the window and folding his arms.
'Why does she come here?' I asked.
'Take the air?' suggested Bob.
'What air?' I said. 'It's all smoke, like any station.'
'Old Knowles likes to show her off' said George. 'Just rubbing it in, you know, look at me: villa looking over People's Park, housemaids, company cab at my door each morning, and this vision in my bed every night.'
'She's quite often seen at the station' said Bob. 'And she doesn't just come here to see Knowles.'
'Why does she come then?' I asked him.
'Catch a train,' said Bob.
'Where to?'
He shrugged.
'Being married to the SM she has a pass all over the line' said Dick.
'So you see,' Bob put in, 'because we don't sell her the tickets, we don't know.'
Now all was quiet in the booking office. George seemed half asleep in his chair all of a sudden, with the cigar lodged in one of his waistcoat pockets. Dick was leafing through a book of accounts. Bob was looking out of the window with his hands in his pockets.
There was another knock on the door and Dick opened it. A grinning kid stood there with a box in his hand. 'Afternoon, mates,' he said. He uncombed his hair by smearing his hat across his sweaty head, then he passed the box to Dick, handing across a docket at the same time. 'Fleetwood singles,' he said, 'numbers five hundred to six thousand on the nose.'
Bob passed a book to Dick, who'd begun unwrapping the parcel, which contained bundles of tickets tied with white ribbons.
But George was scowling from his seat as Dick began to record receipt of the tickets in the ledger. 'We're counting on a full complement this time, old man,' George said to the kid.
There was something funny about the way Dick wrote in the ledger. At first I couldn't see what it was; he just looked greedy to get the words and numbers down, but it struck me after a second that he was holding two pens, writing with both hands.
George saw me watching. 'Like a blinking octopus, en't he?'
Bob, who seemed proud of Dick over this, said: 'He can do sales and receipts at the same time.'
'Five hundred to six thousand exactly,' said Dick, looking up from the ledger and turning to the ticket bundles. 'Looks like they're all here.'
'Have you lot seen the show they're putting on down there?' said the kid, pointing at the floor, but meaning the platforms beneath.
'What show, old man?' said George to the kid (even though he didn't look more than fifteen).
'Picture-taking,' said the kid. 'Photographic artist. He has all the brass lined up.'
Dick walked over once more to the window.
'You'll not see it from there, old man' said the kid, who then gave a funny look towards George.
'I'm off down to look,' said Dick, and Bob went too.
'Good fellows if they can be turned the right way,' said George, when they'd gone. 'Not a lot of steam in them really, but…' He got to his feet and began putting away the tickets from the new parcel, or trying to. He couldn't quite reach the top of what I took to be the rack for Fleetwood singles. I asked if I could help, being six inches taller than George. 'It's quite all right,' he said, and took a stool from the other side of the room. 'They must be put into the racks in a certain special way.'
'Well, yes,' I said, 'in number order, lowest number at the bottom.'
'Bit more to it than that, chief' said George.
But there wasn't, as he knew very well.