had but the slightest transitory glimpses of the drama within, of

how the things looked in the magic mirror of Mr. Hoopdriver's
mind. On the road to Guildford and during his encounters with his

haunting fellow-cyclists the drama had presented chiefly the
quiet gentleman to whom we have alluded, but at Guildford, under

more varied stimuli, he burgeoned out more variously. There was
the house agent's window, for instance, set him upon a charming

little comedy. He would go in, make inquires about that
thirty-pound house, get the key possibly and go over it--the

thing would stimulate the clerk's curiosityimmensely. He
searched his mind for a reason for this proceeding and discovered

that he was a dynamiter needing privacy. Upon that theory he
procured the key, explored the house carefully, said darkly that

it might suit his special needs, but that there were OTHERS to
consult. The clerk, however, did not understand the allusion, and

merely pitied him as one who had married young and paired himself
to a stronger mind than his own.

This proceeding in some occult way led to the purchase of a
note-book and pencil, and that started the conception of an

artist taking notes. That was a little game Mr. Hoopdriver had,
in congenial company, played in his still younger days--to the

infinite annoyance of quite a number of respectable excursionists
at Hastings. In early days Mr. Hoopdriver had been, as his mother

proudly boasted, a 'bit of a drawer,' but a conscientious and
normally stupidschoolmaster perceived the incipient talent and

had nipped it in the bud by a series of lessons in art. However,
our principalcharacter figured about quite happily in old

corners of Guildford, and once the other man in brown, looking
out of the bay window of the Earl of Kent, saw him standing in a

corner by a gateway, note-book in hand, busily sketching the
Earl's imposing features. At which sight the other man in brown

started back from the centre of the window, so as to be hidden
from him, and crouching slightly, watched him intently through

the interstices of the lace curtains.
OMISSIONS

XI
Now the rest of the acts of Mr. Hoopdriver in Guildford, on the

great opening day of his holidays, are not to be detailed here.
How he wandered about the old town in the dusk, and up to the

Hogsback to see the little lamps below and the little stars above
come out one after another; how he returned through the

yellow-lit streets to the Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern and supped
bravely in the commercial room--a Man among Men; how he joined in

the talk about flying-machines and the possibilities of
electricity, witnessing that fiying-machines were "dead certain

to come," and that electricity was "wonderful, wonderful"; how he
went and watched the billiard playing and said, "Left 'em"

several times with an oracular air; how he fell a-yawning; and
how he got out his cycling map and studied it intently,--are

things that find no mention here. Nor will I enlarge upon his
going into the writing-room, and marking the road from London to

Guildford with a fine, bright line of the reddest of red ink. In
his little cyclist hand-book there is a diary, and in the diary

there is an entry of these things--it is there to this day, and I
cannot do better than reproduce it here to witness that this book

is indeed a true one, and no lying fable written to while away an
hour.

At last he fell a-yawning so much that very reluctantly indeed he
set about finishing this great and splendid day. (Alas! that all

days must end at last! ) He got his candle in the hall from a
friendly waiting-maid, and passed upward--whither a modest

novelist, who writes for the family circle, dare not follow. Yet
I may tell you that he knelt down at his bedside, happy and

drowsy, and said, "Our Father 'chartin' heaven," even as he had
learnt it by rote from his mother nearly twenty years ago. And

anon when his breathing had become deep and regular, we may creep
into his bedroom and catch him at his dreams. He is lying upon

his left side, with his arm under the pillow. It is dark, and he
is hidden; but if you could have seen his face, sleeping there in

the darkness, I think you would have perceived, in spite of that
treasured, thin, and straggling moustache, in spite of your

memory of the coarse words he had used that day, that the man
before you was, after all, only a little child asleep.

THE DREAMS OF MR. HOOPDRIVER
XII

In spite of the drawn blinds and the darkness, you have just seen
Mr. Hoopdriver's face peaceful in its beauty sleep in the little,

plain bedroom at the very top of the Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern
at Guildford. That was before midnight. As the night progressed

he was disturbed by dreams.
After your first day of cycling one dream is inevitable. A memory

of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and
round they seem to go. You ride through Dreamland on wonderful

dream bicycles that change and grow; you ride down steeples and
staircases and over precipices; you hover in horrible suspense

over inhabited towns, vainly seeking for a brake your hand cannot
find, to save you from a headlong fall; you plunge into weltering

rivers, and rush helplessly at monstrous obstacles. Anon Mr.
Hoopdriver found himself riding out of the darkness of

non-existence, pedalling Ezekiel's Wheels across the Weald of
Surrey, jolting over the hills and smashing villages in his

course, while the other man in brown cursed and swore at him and
shouted to stop his career. There was the Putney heath-keeper,

too, and the man in drab raging at him. He felt an awful fool, a-
-what was it?--a juggins, ah!--a Juggernaut. The villages went

off one after another with a soft, squashing noise. He did not
see the Young Lady in Grey, but he knew she was looking at his

back. He dared not look round. Where the devil was the brake? It
must have fallen off. And the bell? Right in front of him was

Guildford. He tried to shout and warn the town to get out of the
way, but his voice was gone as well. Nearer, nearer! it was

fearful! and in another moment the houses were cracking like nuts
and the blood of the inhabitants squirting this way and that. The

streets were black with people running. Right under his wheels he
saw the Young Lady in Grey. A feeling of horror came upon Mr.

Hoopdriver; he flung himself sideways to descend, forgetting how
high he was, and forthwith he began falling; falling, falling.

He woke up, turned over, saw the new moon on the window, wondered
a little, and went to sleep again.

This second dream went back into the first somehow, and the other
man in brown came threatening and shouting towards him. He grew

uglier and uglier as he approached, and his expression was
intolerably evil. He came and looked close into Mr. Hoopdriver's

eyes and then receded to an incredible distance. His face seemed
to be luminous. "MISS BEAUMONT," he said, and splashed up a spray

of suspicion. Some one began letting off fireworks, chiefly
Catherine wheels, down the shop, though Mr. Hoopdriver knew it

was against the rules. For it seemed that the place they were in
was a vast shop, and then Mr. Hoopdriver perceived that the other

man in brown was the shop-walker, differing from most
shop-walkers in the fact that he was lit from within as a Chinese

lantern might be. And the customer Mr. Hoopdriver was going to
serve was the Young Lady in Grey. Curious he hadn't noticed it

before. She was in grey as usual,--rationals,--and she had her
bicycle leaning against the counter. She smiled quite frankly at

him, just as she had done when she had apologised for stopping
him. And her form, as she leant towards him, was full of a

sinuous grace he had never noticed before. "What can I have the
pleasure?" said Mr. Hoopdriver at once, and she said, "The Ripley

road." So he got out the Ripley road and unrolled it and showed
it to her, and she said that would do very nicely, and kept on

looking at him and smiling, and he began measuring off eight