g his machine. Mr. Hoopdriver
noted his flaxen moustache, his aquiline nose, his rather bent
shoulders, with a sudden, vivid dislike.

The maid at the Unicorn is naturally a pleasant girl, but she is jaded
by the incessant incidence of cyclists, and Hoopdriver's mind, even as
he conversed with her in that cultivated voice of his--of the weather,
of the distance from London, and of the excellence of the Ripley
road--wandered to the incomparable freshness and brilliance of the Young
Lady in Grey. As he sat at meat he kept turning his head to the window
to see what signs there were of that person, but the face of the
Golden Dragon displayed no appreciation of the delightful morsel it
had swallowed. As an incidental consequence of this distraction, Mr.
Hoopdriver was for a minute greatly inconvenienced by a mouthful of
mustard. After he had called for his reckoning he went, his courage
being high with meat and mustard, to the door, intending to stand, with
his legs wide apart and his hands deep in his pockets, and stare boldly
across the road. But just then the other man in brown appeared in the
gateway of the Golden Dragon yard--it is one of those delightful inns
that date from the coaching days--wheeling his punctured machine. He
was taking it to Flambeau's, the repairer's. He looked up and saw
Hoopdriver, stared for a minute, and then scowled darkly.

But Hoopdriver remained stoutly in the doorway until the other man in
brown had disappeared into Flambeau's. Then he glanced momentarily at
the Golden Dragon, puckered his mouth into a whistle of unconcern, and
proceeded to wheel his machine into the road until a sufficient margin
for mounting was secured.

Now, at that time, I say, Hoopdriver was rather desirous than not of
seeing no more of the Young Lady in Grey. The other man in brown he
guessed was her brother, albeit that person was of a pallid fairness,
differing essentially from her rich colouring; and, besides, he felt he
had made a hopeless fool of himself. But the afternoon was against him,
intolerably hot, especially on the top of his head, and the virtue had
gone out of his legs to digest his cold meat, and altogether his ride to
Guildford was exceedingly intermittent. At times he would walk, at times
lounge by the wayside, and every public house, in spite of Briggs and a
sentiment of economy, meant a lemonade and a dash of bitter. (For that
is the experience of all those who go on wheels, that drinking beget