midday
They were one and all acting and behaving just as they had used to act and behave . Some were a trifle greyer , perhaps , and others stooped a bit ; but they went about their business in the old fashion , and their occupations had not changed . It was just as if he had wound up a clockwork toy before leaving England , and had returned after many years to find it still working . Here came old Dymond , the postman , with the usual midday delivery , light as ever , and the well-remembered dot-and-go-one gait . The maids who came out to take the letters were different ; in one of them the Emigrant recognised a little girl who had once sat facing him in the Wesleyan day-school ; but the bells that fetched them out were those on which he had sounded runaway peals in former days , and with his eyes shut he could have sworn to old Dymond 's double-knock . The cart that rattled its load of empty cans up the street belonged to Nicholas Retallack -LRB- `` Old Nick '' -RRB- , the milkman , and that was Retallack beside it , returning from his morning round . The Emigrant took the cigar from his mouth and blew a lazy cloud .