began
replacing the screw hammer in the wallet.

The heath-keeper never moved. Possibly he raised his eyebrows,
and certainly he stared harder than he did before. "You're pretty
unsociable," he said slowly, as Mr. Hoopdriver seized the handles and
stood ready to mount as soon as the cart had passed.

The indignation gathered slowly but surely. "Why don't you ride on a
private road of your own if no one ain't to speak to you?" asked the
heath-keeper, perceiving more and more clearly the bearing of the
matter. "Can't no one make a passin' remark to you, Touchy? Ain't I good
enough to speak to you? Been struck wooden all of a sudden?"

Mr. Hoopdriver stared into the Immensity of the Future. He was rigid
with emotion. It was like abusing the Lions in Trafalgar Square. But the
heathkeeper felt his honour was at stake.

"Don't you make no remarks to 'IM," said the keeper as the carter came
up broadside to them. "'E's a bloomin' dook, 'e is. 'E don't converse
with no one under a earl. 'E's off to Windsor, 'e is; that's why 'e's
stickin' his be'ind out so haughty. Pride! Why, 'e's got so much of it,
'e has to carry some of it in that there bundle there, for fear 'e'd
bust if 'e didn't ease hisself a bit--'E--"

But Mr. Hoopdriver heard no more. He was hopping vigorously along the
road, in a spasmodic attempt to remount. He missed the treadle once and
swore viciously, to the keeper's immense delight. "Nar! Nar!" said the
heath-keeper.

In another moment Mr. Hoopdriver was up, and after one terrific lurch
of the machine, the heathkeeper dropped out of earshot. Mr. Hoopdriver
would have liked to look back at his enemy, but he usually twisted round
and upset if he tried that. He had to imagine the indignant heath-keeper
telling the carter all about it. He tried to infuse as much disdain
aspossible into his retreating aspect.

He drove on his sinuous way down the dip by the new mere and up the
little rise to the crest of the hill that drops into Kingston Vale;
and so remarkable is the psychology of cycling, that he rode all the
straighter and easier because the emotions the heathkeeper had aroused
relieved his mind of the constant expectation of collapse that had
previously unnerved him. To ride a bicycle properly is very like a love
affair--chiefly it is a matter of faith. Believe you do it, and the
thing is done; doubt, and, for the life of you, you cannot.

Now you may perhaps imagine that as he rode on, his feelings to