pure, walking
untainted and brave and helpful through miry ways. The appearance of
some daintily gloved frockcoated gentleman with buttonhole and eyeglass
complete, gallantly attendant in the rear of customers, served again
to start visions of a simplicity essentially Cromwell-like, of sturdy
plainness, of a strong, silent man going righteously through the world.
This day there had predominated a fine leisurely person immaculately
clothed, and riding on an unexceptional machine, a mysterious
person--quite unostentatious, but with accidental self-revelation
of something over the common, even a "bloomin' Dook," it might be
incognito, on the tour of the South Coast.

You must not think that there was any TELLING of these stories of this
life-long series by Mr. Hoopdriver. He never dreamt that they were known
to a soul. If it were not for the trouble, I would, I think, go back and
rewrite this section from the beginning, expunging the statements that
Hoopdriver was a poet and a romancer, and saying instead that he was a
playwright and acted his own plays. He was not only the sole performer,
but the entire audience, and the entertainment kept him almost
continuously happy. Yet even that playwright comparison scarcely
expresses all the facts of the case. After all, very many of his dreams
never got acted at all, possibly indeed, most of them, the dreams of
a solitary walk for instance, or of a tramcar ride, the dreams dreamt
behind the counter while trade was slack and mechanical foldings
and rollings occupied his muscles. Most of them were little dramatic
situations, crucial dialogues, the return of Mr. Hoopdriver to his
native village, for instance, in a well-cut holiday suit and natty
gloves, the unheard asides of the rival neighbours, the delight of
the old 'mater,' the intelligence--"A ten-pound rise all at once
from Antrobus, mater. Whad d'yer think of that?" or again, the first
whispering of love, dainty and witty and tender, to the girl he served
a few days ago with sateen, or a gallant rescue of generalised beauty in
distress from truculent insult or ravening dog.

So many people do this--and you never suspect it. You see a tattered lad
selling matches in the street, and you think there is nothing between
him and the bleakness of immensity, between him and utter abasement, but
a few tattered rags and a feeble musculature. And all unseen by you a
host of heaven-sent fatuities swathes him about, even, maybe, as they