Not the falling I mean, but the arm. She wanted to sit on the gate unsupported like Harry, who now pointed along the lane, saying, 'Here he comes', and old Phil Shannon, who lit the lamps in Thorpe-on-Ouse and at Acaster Malbis, was approaching on his push bike, with the long lamplighter's pole held at his side. I fancied that it was a lance, and Shannon a sort of arthritic knight on horseback. He leant alternatively left and right as he pedalled, like a moving mechanism, some species of clockwork.

'You could set your watch by him,' I said, as he came to about three hundred yards' distance from us.

'You could not,' said Harry. 'It's twenty past six. Last night he was here at five past.'

'Take your arm away, father,' said Sylvia.

I removed my arm, and we watched Shannon come on.

'He looks all-in,' said Harry.

'Well, we're the last house he does,' I said.

'I know that,' said Harry. (He was a bright boy and it seemed that he knew most things of late.)

'I think it's ever so nice of him to come all this way,' said Sylvia, who then tumbled forward onto the cinder track that ran under the gate. She was quite unhurt, and climbed straight back up, saying, 'Don't worry, my pinny's still clean.' It was clean on, and she knew she'd catch it from her mother if it got muddy.

'It's not nice,' said Harry. 'He's paid to do it.'

'Keep your voice down,' I said.

'Why?' said Harry. 'It's fact.'

As Mr Shannon came up, we all said, 'Good evening, Mr Shannon,' and he growled out a 'Good evening' in return, which tickled me. He wasn't over-friendly, except when he'd a drink taken, but even he couldn't ignore a greeting from three people at once. He was an idle bugger into the bargain, and remained on his bike as he lifted the pole up to the lonely gas lamp on the standard over-opposite.