no further use--" Mr. Hoopdriver chuckled and lapsed into the
silent concoction of a delightfully impudent letter. "Mr. J. Hoopdriver
presents his compliments." But the grave note reasserted itself.

"Might trundle back there in an hour, of course, and exchange them. MY
old crock's so blessed shabby. He's sure to be spiteful too. Have me
run in, perhaps. Then she'd be in just the same old fix, only worse. You
see, I'm her Knight-errant. It complicates things so."

His eye, wandering loosely, rested on the sponge bath. "What the juice
do they want with cream pans in a bedroom?" said Mr. Hoopdriver, en
passant.

"Best thing we can do is to set out of here as soon as possible,
anyhow. I suppose she'll go home to her friends. That bicycle is a juicy
nuisance, anyhow. Juicy nuisance!"

He jumped to his feet with a sudden awakening of energy, to proceed with
his toilet. Then with a certain horror he remembered that the simple
necessaries of that process were at Bognor! "Lord!" he remarked, and
whistled silently for a space. "Rummy go! profit and loss; profit, one
sister with bicycle complete, wot offers?--cheap for tooth and 'air
brush, vests, night-shirt, stockings, and sundries.

"Make the best of it," and presently, when it came to hair-brushing, he
had to smooth his troubled locks with his hands. It was a poor result.
"Sneak out and get a shave, I suppose, and buy a brush and so on. Chink
again! Beard don't show much."

He ran his hand over his chin, looked at himself steadfastly for some
time, and curled his insufficient moustache up with some care. Then he
fell a-meditating on his beauty. He considered himself, three-quarter
face, left and right. An expression of distaste crept over his features.
"Looking won't alter it, Hoopdriver," he remarked. "You're a weedy
customer, my man. Shoulders narrow. Skimpy, anyhow."

He put his knuckles on the toilet table and regarded himself with his
chin lifted in the air. "Good Lord!" he said. "WHAT a neck! Wonder why I
got such a thundering lump there."

He sat down on the bed, his eye still on the glass. "If I'd been
exercised properly, if I'd been fed reasonable, if I hadn't been shoved
out of a silly school into a silly shop--But there! the old folks didn't
know no better. The schoolmaster ought to have. But he didn't, poor old
fool!--Still, when it comes to meeting a girl like this--It's 'ARD.

"I wonder what Adam'd think of me--as a specimen. Civilisation,
eigh? Heir o