at and begged
her pardon and gave her more room than she had taken.

"Well," said Mr. Randall (for he had been observing her for some time
with sidelong appreciation), "some people have a way with them."

"Some people have impudence," said Mrs. Randall.

"And if it was you or me, Bessie," Mrs. Ransome said, "it wouldn't have
been made so easy for us."

"I see you wanting to shove anybody, Emmy," said her brother.

"If I did, I shouldn't begin with little innocent children. I should
shove some one of my own size."

Then they were silent and paid no more attention to the young woman and
her ways.

For far down at the end of the course the racers, the winners of the
first four heats, were being ranged for the start, four abreast; the two
young men from Putney and Wimbledon on the inside of the course, Fred
Booty in the middle, and Ransome outside. Booty knew that, starting even
with his rival, he hadn't much of a chance. As for the young men from
Putney and Wimbledon, they would be nowhere.

Of those four young bodies, Ransome's was by far the finest. Even Booty,
with his wild slenderness and faunlike grace, could not be compared with
Ransome, so well knit, so perfect in every limb was he. Beside him the
two young men from Putney and Wimbledon were distinctly weedy. He stood
poised, with head uplifted, his keen mouth tight shut, his nostrils
dilated, his eyes gazing forward, intent on the signal for the start.
His brown hair, soaked in the sweat of the first heat and then
sun-dried, was crisped and curled about his head. Under his white gauze
"zephyr" and black running-drawers the charged muscles quivered. His
whole body was a quivering vehicle for the leashed soul of speed.

The pistol-shot was fired. They let themselves go. From far up the
course by the winning-post, where Winny leaned out over the barrier, it
was as if at the first row of hurdles four bodies leaped into the air
like one and wriggled there. At the sixth row, well in sight, two
bodies, Booty and Ransome, soared clean and dropped together. Putney and
Wimbledon rose wriggling close behind their drop. At the seventh row
Ransome was in front, divided from Booty by an almost imperceptible
interval. Putney and Wimbledon were several yards behind. At the eighth
and the ninth hurdles he rose gloriously and alone; Booty dropped with a
dull thud a yard behind him. Putney and Wimbledon were nowhere. Nobody
looked at them as they went lolloping, unevenly, d