nd, flour unlimited, and currants unsought
after by the wealthy.

Jones had not run for years. And in this connection it is quite
surprising how Society pursues a man once he gets over the barrier--and
especially when he has to run for his liberty.

The first mile was bad, then he got his second wind handed to him,
despite everything, by a fair constitution and a fairly respectable
life, but the pursuer was now only a quarter of a mile behind. Up to
this the course had been clear with no spectators, but now came along
from the direction of Northbourne an invalid on the arm of an attendant,
and behind them a boy on a bicycle. The bicycle was an inspiration.

It was also yellow painted, and bore a carrier in front blazoned with
the name of a Northbourne Italian Warehouseman. It contained parcels,
evidently intended for one of the few bungalows that strewed the cliff.

The boy fought to defend his master's property, briefly, but still he
fought, till a happy stroke in the wind laid him on the sun-warmed turf.
The screams of the invalid--it was a female--sounded in the ears of
Jones like part of some fantastic dream, so seemed the bicycle. It had
no bell, the saddle wanted raising at least two inches, still it went,
and the wind was behind.

On the right was a sheer drop of two hundred feet, and the road here
skirted the cliff edge murderously close, for the simple reason that
cliff falls had eaten the bordering grass to within a few feet of the
road. This course on an unknown and questionable bicycle laden with
parcels of tea and sugar, was open to a good many objections; they did
not occur to Jones; he was making good speed, or thought he was till the
long declivity leading to Northbourne was reached. Here he began to know
what speed really was, for he found on pressing the lever that the brake
would not act. Fortunately it was a free wheel.

This declivity runs between detached villas and stone walls, sheltering
prim gardens, right on to the west end of the esplanade, which is, in
fact, a continuation of it. For the first few hundred yards Jones
thought that nothing could go quicker than the houses and walls rushing
past him, towards the end he was not thinking.

The esplanade opened out, a happy band of children with buckets and
wooden spades, returning home to tea, opened out, gave place to rushing
apartment houses with green balconies on the left, rushing sea scape and
bathing machines on the right. Then the sp