o
I get on the accursed machine, than off I go hammer and tongs; I never
look to right or left, never notice a flower, never see a view, get hot,
juicy, red,--like a grilled chop. Here I am, sir. Come from Guildford in
something under the hour. WHY, sir?"

Mr. Hoopdriver shook his head.

"Because I'm a damned fool, sir. Because I've reservoirs and reservoirs
of muscular energy, and one or other of them is always leaking. It's
a most interesting road, birds and trees, I've no doubt, and wayside
flowers, and there's nothing I should enjoy more than watching them. But
I can't. Get me on that machine, and I have to go. Get me on anything,
and I have to go. And I don't want to go a bit. WHY should a man rush
about like a rocket, all pace and fizzle? Why? It makes me furious. I
can assure you, sir, I go scorching along the road, and cursing aloud at
myself for doing it. A quiet, dignified, philosophical man, that's what
I am--at bottom; and here I am dancing with rage and swearing like a
drunken tinker at a perfect stranger--

"But my day's wasted. I've lost all that country road, and now I'm on
the fringe of London. And I might have loitered all the morning! Ugh!
Thank Heaven, sir, you have not the irritable temperament, that you
are not goaded to madness by your endogenous sneers, by the eternal
wrangling of an uncomfortable soul and body. I tell you, I lead a cat
and dog life--But what IS the use of talking?--It's all of a piece!"

He tossed his head with unspeakable self-disgust, pitched the lemon
squash into his mouth, paid for it, and without any further remark
strode to the door. Mr. Hoopdriver was still wondering what to say when
his interlocutor vanished. There was a noise of a foot spurning the
gravel, and when Mr. Hoopdriver reached the doorway, the man in drab was
a score of yards Londonward. He had already gathered pace. He pedalled
with ill-suppressed anger, and his head was going down. In another
moment he flew swiftly out of sight under the railway arch, and Mr.
Hoopdriver saw him no more.

VII.

After this whirlwind Mr. Hoopdriver paid his reckoning and--being now
a little rested about the muscles of the knees--resumed his saddle and
rode on in the direction of Ripley, along an excellent but undulating
road. He was pleased to find his command over his machine already
sensibly increased. He set himself little exercises as he went along and
performed them with variable success. There was, for insta