noon
_ '' The man was an engine-driver , thick-set and heavy , with a short beard grizzled at the edge , and eyes perpetually screwed up , because his life had run for the most part in the teeth of the wind . The lashes , too , had been scorched off . If you penetrated the mask of oil and coal-dust that was part of his working suit , you found a reddish-brown phlegmatic face , and guessed its age at fifty . He brought the last down train into Lewminster station every night at 9.45 , took her on five minutes later , and passed through Lewminster again at noon , on his way back with the Galloper , as the porters called it . He had reached that point of skill at which a man knows every pound of metal in a locomotive ; seemed to feel just what was in his engine the moment he took hold of the levers and started up ; and was expecting promotion . While waiting for it , he hit on the idea of studying a more delicate machine , and married a wife . She was the daughter of a woman at whose house he lodged , and her age was less than half of his own .