aight
blotted out these first intimations of fatigue. A man on horseback
appeared; Hoopdriver, in a tumult of soul at his own temerity, passed
him. Then down the hill into Kingston, with the screw hammer, behind
in the wallet, rattling against the oil can. He passed, without
misadventure, a fruiterer's van and a sluggish cartload of bricks. And
in Kingston Hoopdriver, with the most exquisite sensations, saw the
shutters half removed from a draper's shop, and two yawning youths,
in dusty old black jackets and with dirty white comforters about their
necks, clearing up the planks and boxes and wrappers in the window,
preparatory to dressing it out. Even so had Hoopdriver been on the
previous day. But now, was he not a bloomin' Dook, palpably in the
sight of common men? Then round the corner to the right--bell banged
furiously--and so along the road to Surbiton.

Whoop for Freedom and Adventure! Every now and then a house with an
expression of sleepy surprise would open its eye as he passed, and
to the right of him for a mile or so the weltering Thames flashed and
glittered. Talk of your joie de vivre. Albeit with a certain cramping
sensation about the knees and calves slowly forcing itself upon his
attention.

V. THE SHAMEFUL EPISODE OF THE YOUNG LADY IN GREY

Now you must understand that Mr. Hoopdriver was not one of your fast
young men. If he had been King Lemuel, he could not have profited more
by his mother's instructions. He regarded the feminine sex as something
to bow to and smirk at from a safe distance. Years of the intimate
remoteness of a counter leave their mark upon a man. It was an adventure
for him to take one of the Young Ladies of the establishment to church
on a Sunday. Few modern young men could have merited less the epithet
"Dorg." But I have thought at times that his machine may have had
something of the blade in its metal. Decidedly it was a machine with a
past. Mr. Hoopdriver had bought it second-hand from Hare's in Putney,
and Hare said it had had several owners. Second-hand was scarcely the
word for it, and Elare was mildly puzzled that he should be selling such
an antiquity. He said it was perfectly sound, if a little old-fashioned,
but he was absolutely silent about its moral character. It may even have
begun its career with a poet, say, in his glorious youth. It may have
been the bicycle of a Really Bad Man. No one who has ever ridden a cycle
of any kind but will witness that the things