over their work and made a gallant but unsuccessful attempt to
take the rise. The machine was evidently too highly geared for

hill climbing, and presently the rearmost rider rose on his
saddle and hopped off, leaving his companion to any fate he found

proper. The foremost rider was a man unused to such machines and
apparently undecided how to dismount. He wabbled a few yards up

the hill with a long tail of machine wabbling behind him.
Finally, he made an attempt to jump off as one does off a single

bicycle, hit his boot against the backbone, and collapsed
heavily, falling on his shoulder.

She stood up. "Dear me!" she said. "I hope he isn't hurt."
The second rider went to the assistance of the fallen man.

Hoopdriver stood up, too. The lank, shaky machine was lifted up
and wheeled out of the way, and then the fallen rider, being

assisted, got up slowly and stood rubbing his arm. No serious
injury seemed to be done to the man, and the couple presently

turned their attention to the machine by the roadside. They were
not in cycling clothes Hoopdriver observed. One wore the

grotesque raiment for which the Cockney discovery of the game of
golf seems indirectly blamable. Even at this distance the

flopping flatness of his cap, the bright brown leather at the top
of his calves, and the chequering of his stockings were

perceptible. The other, the rear rider, was a slender little man
in grey.

"Amatoors," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
Jessie stood staring, and a veil of thought dropped over her

eyes. She no longer regarded the two men who were now tinkering
at the machine down below there.

"How much have you?" she said.
He thrust his right hand into his pocket and produced six coins,

counted them with his left index finger, and held them out to
her. "Thirteen four half," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "Every penny."

"I have half a sovereign," she said. "Our bill wherever we
stop--" The hiatus was more eloquent than many words.

"I never thought of money coming in to stop us like this," said
Jessie.

"It's a juiced nuisance."
"Money," said Jessie. "Is it possible--Surely! Conventionality!

May only people of means--Live their own Lives? I never thought
..."

Pause.
"Here's some more cyclists coming," said Mr. Hoopdriver.

The two men were both busy with their bicycle still, but now from
among the trees emerged the massive bulk of a 'Marlborough Club'

tandem, ridden by a slender woman in grey and a burly man in ?
Norfolk jacket. Following close upon this came lank black figure

in a piebald straw hat, riding a tricycle of antiquated pattern
with two large wheels in front. The man in grey remained bowed

over the bicycle, with his stomach resting on the saddle, but his
companion stood up and addressed some remark to the tricycle

riders. Then it seemed as if he pointed up hill to where Mr.
Hoopdriver and his companion stood side by side. A still odder

thing followed; the lady in grey took out her handkerchief,
appeared to wave it for a moment, and then at a hasty motion from

her companion the white signal vanished.
"Surely," said Jessie, peering under her hand. "It's never--"

The tandem tricycle began to ascend the hill, quartering
elaborately from side to side to ease the ascent. It was evident,

from his heaving shoulders and depressed head, that the burly
gentleman was exerting himself. The clerical person on the

tricycle assumed the shape of a note of interrogation. Then on
the heels of this procession came a dogcart driven by a man in a

billycock hat and containing a lady in dark green.
"Looks like some sort of excursion," said Hoopdriver.

Jessie did not answer. She was still peering under her hand.
"Surely," she said.

The clergyman's efforts were becoming convulsive. With a curious
jerking motion, the tricycle he rode twisted round upon itself,

and he partlydismounted and partly fell off. He turned his
machine up hill again immediately and began to wheel it. Then the

burly gentleman dismounted, and with a courtly attentiveness
assisted the lady in grey to alight. There was some little

difference of opinion as to assistance, she so clearly wished to
help push. Finally she gave in, and the burly gentleman began

impelling the machine up hill by his own unaided strength. His
face made a dot of brilliant colour among the greys and greens at

the foot of the hill. The tandem bicycle was now, it seems,
repaired, and this joined the tail of the procession, its riders

walking behind the dogcart, from which the lady in green and the
driver had now descended.

"Mr. Hoopdriver," said Jessie. "Those people--I'm almost sure--"
"Lord!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, reading the rest in her face, and he

turned to pick up his machine at once. Then he dropped it and
assisted her to mount.

At the sight of Jessie mounting against the sky line the people
coming up the hill suddenly became excited and ended Jessie's

doubts at once. Two handkerchiefs waved, and some one shouted.
The riders of the tandem bicycle began to run it up hill, past

the other vehicles. But our young people did not wait for further
developments of the pursuit. In another moment they were out of

sight, riding hard down a steady incline towards Stoney Cross.
Before they had dropped among the trees out of sight of the hill

brow, Jessie looked back and saw the tandem rising over the
crest, with its rear rider just tumbling into the saddle.

"They're coming," she said, and bent her head over her handles in
true professional style.

They whirled down into the valley, over a white bridge, and saw
ahead of them a number of shaggy little ponies frisking in the

roadway. Involuntarily they slackened. "Shoo!" said Mr.
Hoopdriver, and the ponies kicked up their heels derisively. At

that Mr. Hoopdriver lost his temper and charged at them, narrowly
missed one, and sent them jumping the ditch into the bracken

under the trees, leaving the way clear for Jessie.
Then the road rose quietly but persistently; the treadles grew

heavy, and Mr. Hoopdriver's breath sounded like a saw. The tandem
appeared, making frightful exertions, at the foot, while the

chase was still climbing. Then, thank Heaven! a crest and a
stretch of up and down road, whose only disadvantage was its

pitiless exposure to the afternoon sun. The tandem apparently
dismounted at the hill, and did not appear against the hot blue

sky until they were already near some trees and a good mile away.
"We're gaining," said Mr. Hoopdriver, with a little Niagara of

perspiration dropping from brow to cheek. "That hill--"
But that was their only gleam of success. They were both nearly

spent. Hoopdriver, indeed, was quite spent, and only a feeling of
shame prolonged the liquidation of his bankrupt physique. From

that point the tandem grained upon them steadily. At the Rufus
Stone, it was scarcely a hundred yards behind. Then one desperate

spurt, and they found themselves upon a steady downhill stretch
among thick pine woods. Downhill nothing can beat a highly geared

tandem bicycle. Automatically Mr. Hoopdriver put up his feet, and
Jessie slackened her pace. In another moment they heard the swish

of the fat pneumatics behind them, and the tandem passed
Hoopdriver and drew alongside Jessie. Hoopdriver felt a mad

impulse to collide with this abominable machine as it passed him.
His only consolation was to notice that its riders, riding

violently, were quite as dishevelled as himself and smothered in
sandy white dust.

Abruptly Jessie stopped and dismounted, and the tandem riders