expectation of collapse that had previously" target="_blank" title="ad.预先；以前">previously unnerved him. To ride

a bicycleproperly is very like a love affair--chiefly it
is a matter of faith. Believe you do it, and the thing is done;

doubt, and, for the life of you, you cannot.
Now you may perhaps imagine that as he rode on, his feelings

towards the heath-keeper were either vindictive or
remorseful,--vindictive for the aggravation or remorseful for his

own injudicious display of ill temper. As a matter of fact, they
were nothing of the sort. A sudden, a wonderful gratitude,

possessed him. The Glory of the Holidays had resumed its sway
with a sudden accession of splendour. At the crest of the hill he

put his feet upon the footrests, and now riding moderately
straight, went, with a palpitating brake, down that excellent

descent. A new delight was in his eyes, quite over and above the
pleasure of rushing through the keen, sweet, morning air. He

reached out his thumb and twanged his bell out of sheer
happiness.

"'He's a bloomin' Dook--he is!'" said Mr. Hoopdriver to himself,
in a soft undertone, as he went soaring down the hill, and again,

"'He's a bloomin' Dook!"' He opened his mouth in a silent laugh.
It was having a decent cut did it. His social superiority had

been so evident that even a man like that noticed it. No more
Manchester Department for ten days! Out of Manchester, a Man. The

draper Hoopdriver, the Hand, had vanished from existence. Instead
was a gentleman, a man of pleasure, with a five-pound note, two

sovereigns, and some silver at various convenient points of his
person. At any rate as good as a Dook, if not precisely in the

peerage. Involuntarily at the thought of his funds Hoopdriver's
right hand left the handle and sought his breast pocket, to be

immediately recalled by a violent swoop of the machine towards
the cemetery. Whirroo! Just missed that half-brick! Mischievous

brutes there were in the world to put such a thing in the road.
Some blooming 'Arry or other! Ought to prosecute a few of these

roughs, and the rest would know better. That must be the buckle
of the wallet was rattling on the mud-guard. How cheerfully the

wheels buzzed!
The cemetery was very silent and peaceful, but the Vale was

waking, and windows rattled and squeaked up, and a white dog came
out of one of the houses and yelped at him. He got off, rather

breathless, at the foot of Kingston Hill, and pushed up. Halfway
up, an early milk chariot rattled by him; two dirty men with

bundles came hurrying down. Hoopdriver felt sure they were
burglars, carrying home the swag.

It was up Kingston Hill that he first noticed a peculiar feeling,
a slight tightness at his knees; but he noticed, too, at the top

that he rode straighter than he did before. The pleasure of
riding straight 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 exquisitesensations, 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.
THE SHAMEFUL EPISODE OF THE YOUNG LADY IN GREY

V
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 are unaccountably prone to

pick up bad habits--and keep them.
It is undeniable that it became convulsed with the most violent

emotions directly the Young Lady in Grey appeared. It began an
absolutelyunprecedented Wabble--unprecedented so far as

Hoopdriver's experience went. It "showed off"--the most decadent
sinuosity. It left a track like one of Beardsley's feathers. He

suddenly realised, too, that his cap was loose on his head and
his breath a mere remnant.

The Young Lady in Grey was also riding a bicycle. She was dressed
in a beautiful bluish-gray, and the sun behind her drew her

outline in gold and left the rest in shadow. Hoopdriver was dimly
aware that she was young, rather slender, dark, and with a bright

colour and bright eyes. Strange doubts possessed him as to the
nature of her nethercostume. He had heard of such things of

course. French, perhaps. Her handles glittered; a jet of sunlight
splashed off her bell blindingly. She was approaching the high

road along an affluent from the villas of Surbiton. fee roads
converged slantingly. She was travelling at about the same pace

as Mr. Hoopdriver. The appearances pointed to a meeting at the
fork of the roads.

Hoopdriver was seized with a horribleconflict of doubts. By
contrast with her he rode disgracefully. Had he not better get

off at once and pretend something was wrong with his treadle ?
Yet even the end of getting off was an uncertainty. That last

occasion on Putney Heath! On the other hand, what would happen if
he kept on? To go very slow seemed the abnegation of his

manhood. To crawl after a mere schoolgirl! Besides, she was not
riding very fast. On the other hand, to thrust himself in front

of her, consuming the road in his tendril-like advance, seemed an
incivility--greed. He would leave her such a very little. His

business training made him prone to bow and step aside. If only
one could take one's hands off the handles, one might pass with a

silent elevation of the hat, of course. But even that was a
little suggestive of a funeral.

Meanwhile the roads converged. She was looking at him. She was
flushed, a little thin, and had very bright eyes. Her red lips

fell apart. She may have been riding hard, but it looked
uncommonly like a faint smile. And the things were--yes!--

RATIONALS! Suddenly an impulse to bolt from the situation became
clamorous. Mr. Hoopdriver pedalled convulsively, intending to

pass her. He jerked against some tin thing on the road, and it
flew up between front wheel and mud-guard. He twisted round

towards her. Had the machine a devil?
At that supreme moment it came across him that he would have done

wiser to dismount. He gave a frantic 'whoop' and tried to get
round, then, as he seemed falling over, he pulled the handles

straight again and to the left by an instinctivemotion, and shot
behind her hind wheel, missing her by a hair's breadth. The

pavement kerb awaited him. He tried to recover, and found himself