One bell rang noon, another marked the arrival of the noon train and the third summoned the porters to lunch. The temporal distinction seemed trifling until a trainee rang all three together. (temporal: time-related, chronological, time-based; distinction: difference, differentiation, contrast; trifling: trivial, negligible, insignificant) Bedlam followed. (bedlam: uproar, pandemonium, chaos) A porter tried to eject a lunch trolley from a moving carriage while a stationmaster chased a departing pie. (eject: expel, remove, discharge)
The trainee's predecessor had kept a punctilious record of each bell and its purpose. (predecessor: forerunner, previous holder, antecedent; punctilious: meticulous, scrupulous, exact) The old ledger made the rule self-evident to a reader, but no one had shown it to the new man. (self-evident: obvious, evident, manifest) His supervisor was dismayed to discover the omission and too honest to censure him for it. (dismayed: distressed, disheartened, discouraged; omission: exclusion, oversight, neglect; censure: reprimand, rebuke, condemn)
They put the ledger by the ropes. To underscore the difference, the cook tied a spoon to the lunch bell. (underscore: emphasize, stress, highlight) From that day the fidelity of the timetable remained debatable, but dinner was announced with unimpeachable accuracy. (debatable: arguable, disputable, questionable; unimpeachable: irreproachable, unquestionable, blameless)