g it over.
That might do. Lucky he had a card case! A hundred a shilling--while
you wait. He was getting winded. The road was certainly a bit uphill.
He turned the corner and saw a long stretch of road, and a grey dress
vanishing. He set his teeth. Had he gained on her at all? "Monkey on
a gridiron!" yelped a small boy. Hoopdriver redoubled his efforts. His
breath became audible, his steering unsteady, his pedalling positively
ferocious. A drop of perspiration ran into his eye, irritant as acid.
The road really was uphill beyond dispute. All his physiology began to
cry out at him. A last tremendous effort brought him to the corner and
showed yet another extent of shady roadway, empty save for a baker's
van. His front wheel suddenly shrieked aloud. "Oh Lord!" said
Hoopdriver, relaxing.

Anyhow she was not in sight. He got off unsteadily, and for a moment
his legs felt like wisps of cotton. He balanced his machine against the
grassy edge of the path and sat down panting. His hands were gnarled
with swollen veins and shaking palpably, his breath came viscid.

"I'm hardly in training yet," he remarked. His legs had gone leaden.
"I don't feel as though I'd had a mouthful of breakfast." Presently he
slapped his side pocket and produced therefrom a brand-new cigarette
case and a packet of Vansittart's Red Herring cigarettes. He filled
the case. Then his eye fell with a sudden approval on the ornamental
chequering of his new stockings. The expression in his eyes faded slowly
to abstract meditation.

"She WAS a stunning girl," he said. "I wonder if I shall ever set eyes
on her again. And she knew how to ride, too! Wonder what she thought of
me."

The phrase 'bloomin' Dook' floated into his mind with a certain flavour
of comfort.

He lit a cigarette, and sat smoking and meditating. He did not even look
up when vehicles passed. It was perhaps ten minutes before he roused
himself. "What rot it is! What's the good of thinking such things," he
said. "I'm only a blessed draper's assistant." (To be exact, he did not
say blessed. The service of a shop may polish a man's exterior ways, but
the 'prentices' dormitory is an indifferent school for either manners
or morals.) He stood up and began wheeling his machine towards Esher. It
was going to be a beautiful day, and the hedges and trees and the open
country were all glorious to his town-tired eyes. But it was a little
different from the elation of his start.

"Look at the gentlem