Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The Wheels of Chance Chapters 9 to 12

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The Wheels of Chance Chapters 9 to 12 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Section four of the Wheels of Chance. This is a
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Recording by Marianne Spiegel. The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells,
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Speaker 1: Chapter nine, How mister Hoopdriver was haunted. As mister Hoopdriver
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Speaker 1: rode swaggeringly along the Ripley road, it came to him
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Speaker 1: with an unwarrantable sense of comfort that he had seen
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Speaker 1: the last of the young lady in gray. But the
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Speaker 1: ill concealed blatery of the machine, the present machinery of fate,
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Speaker 1: the due machine, so to speak, was against him. The
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Speaker 1: bicycle torn from this attractive young woman, grew heavier and heavier,
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Speaker 1: and continually more unsteady. It seemed a choice between stopping
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Speaker 1: at Ripley or dying in the flower of his days.
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Speaker 1: He went into the Unicorn after propping his machine outside
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Speaker 1: the door, and as he cooled down and smoked his
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Speaker 1: red herring cigarette while the cold meat was getting ready,
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Speaker 1: he saw from the window the young lady in gray
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Speaker 1: and the other man in brown entering Ripley. They filled
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Speaker 1: him with apprehension by looking at the house which sheltered him.
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Speaker 1: But the sight of his bicycle prompt in a drunk
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Speaker 1: and incapable attitude against the doorway, humping its rackety mud
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Speaker 1: guard and leering at them with its darkened lantern eye,
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Speaker 1: drove them away, So it seemed, mister Hoopdriver, to the
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Speaker 1: spacious swallow of the golden dragon. The young lady was
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Speaker 1: riding very slowly, but the other man in brown had
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Speaker 1: a bad puncture and was wheeling his machine. Mister Hoopdriver
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Speaker 1: noted his flexen mustache, his aquiline nose, his rather bent
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Speaker 1: shoulders with a sudden, vivid dislike. The maid at the
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Speaker 1: Unicorn is naturally a pleasant girl, but she is jaded
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Speaker 1: by the incessant in incidents of cyclists, and Hoopdriver's mind,
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Speaker 1: even as he conversed with her in that cultivated voice
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Speaker 1: of his, of the weather, of the distance from London,
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Speaker 1: and of the excellence of the Ripley Road, wandered to
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Speaker 1: the incomparable freshness and brilliance of the young lady in gray.
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Speaker 1: As he sat at meat, he kept turning his head
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Speaker 1: to the window to see what signs there were of
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Speaker 1: that person. But the face of the Golden Dragon displayed
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Speaker 1: no appreciation of the delightful morsel it had swallowed. As
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Speaker 1: an incidental consequence of this distraction, mister Hoopdriver was for
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Speaker 1: a minute greatly inconvenienced by mouthful of mustard. After he
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Speaker 1: had called for his reckoning, he went his courage, being
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Speaker 1: high with meat and mustard, to the door, intending to
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Speaker 1: stand with his legs wide apart and his hands deep
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Speaker 1: in his pockets, and stare boldly across the road. But
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Speaker 1: just then the other man in brown appeared in the
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Speaker 1: gateway of the Golden Dragon yard. It is one of
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Speaker 1: those delightful inns that date from the coaching days. Wheeling
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Speaker 1: his punctured machine, he was taking it to Flambeau's the repairs.
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Speaker 1: He looked up and saw Hoopdriver, stared for a minute,
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Speaker 1: and then scowled darkly. But Hoopdriver remained stoutly in the
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Speaker 1: doorway until the other man in brown had disappeared into Flambeau's.
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Speaker 1: Then he glanced momentarily at the Golden Dragon, puckered his
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Speaker 1: mouth into a whistle of unconcern, and proceeded to wheel
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Speaker 1: his machine into the road until a sufficient margin for
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Speaker 1: mounting was secured. Now At that time, I say, hoopdriver
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Speaker 1: was rather desirous than not of seeing no more of
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Speaker 1: the young lady in gray. The other man in brown,
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Speaker 1: he guessed was her brother, albeit that person was of
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Speaker 1: a pallid fairness, differing essentially from her rich coloring. And
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Speaker 1: besides he felt that he made a hopeless fool of himself.
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Speaker 1: But the afternoon was against him, intolerably hot, especially on
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Speaker 1: the top of his head, and the virtue had gone
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Speaker 1: out of his legs to digest his cold meat. And
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Speaker 1: altogether his ride to Guildford was exceedingly intermittent. At times
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Speaker 1: he would walk, at times lounged by the wayside, and
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Speaker 1: every public house, in spite of briggs, and a sentiment
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Speaker 1: of economy, meant a lemonade and the dash of bitter.
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Speaker 1: For that is the experience of all those who go
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Speaker 1: on wheels, that drinking begets thirst even more than thirst
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Speaker 1: begets drinking, until at last the man who yields becomes
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Speaker 1: a hell, unto himself, a hell in which the fire
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Speaker 1: dieth not and the thirst is not quenched, until a
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Speaker 1: pennyworth of acrid green apples turned the current that threatened
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Speaker 1: to carry him away ever and again a cycle or
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Speaker 1: a party of cyclists would go by with glittering wheels
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Speaker 1: and softly running chains, And on each occasion, to save
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Speaker 1: his self respect, mister hoopdriver descended and feigned some trouble
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Speaker 1: with his saddle. Every time he descended with less trepidation.
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Speaker 1: He did not reach Guildford until nearly four o'clock, and
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Speaker 1: then he was so much exhausted that he decided to
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Speaker 1: put up there for the night at the Yellow Hammer
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Speaker 1: Coffee tavern. And after he had cooled the space and
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Speaker 1: refreshed himself with tea and bread and butter and jam
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Speaker 1: the tea he drank noisily out of the saucer, he
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Speaker 1: went out to loiter away the rest of the afternoon.
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Speaker 1: Guildford is an altogether charming old town, famous, so he
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Speaker 1: learnt from a guide book, as the scene of Master
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Speaker 1: Tupper's great historical novel of Stephen Langton. And it has
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Speaker 1: a delightful castle, all set about with geraniums and brass
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Speaker 1: plates commemorating the gentleman who put them up, and its
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Speaker 1: guild hall is a Tudor building, very pleasant to see.
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Speaker 1: And in the afternoon the shops are busy, and the
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Speaker 1: people going to and fro make the pavements look bright
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Speaker 1: and prosperous. It was nice to peep in the windows
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Speaker 1: and see the heads of the men and girls in
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Speaker 1: the draper's shops, busy as busy serving away. The high
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Speaker 1: street runs down at an angle of seventy degrees to
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Speaker 1: the horizon, So it seemed to miss hoopdriver, whose feeling
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Speaker 1: for gradientce was unnaturally exalted, and it brought his heart
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Speaker 1: into his mouth to see a cyclist ride down it
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Speaker 1: like a fly crawling down a window pane. The man
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Speaker 1: hadn't even a break. He visited the castle early in
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Speaker 1: the evening and paid his twopence to ascend the keep
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Speaker 1: at the top. From the cage, he looked down over
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Speaker 1: the clustering red roofs of the town and the tower
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Speaker 1: of the church, and then, going to the southern side,
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Speaker 1: sat down and lit a red herring cigarette and stared
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Speaker 1: away south over the old bramble bearing firm beset ruin,
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Speaker 1: at the waves of blue upland that rose one behind
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Speaker 1: another across the whale to the lazy altitudes of hind
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Speaker 1: Head and Buster. His pale gray eyes were full of
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Speaker 1: complacency and pleasurable anticipation tomorrow he would go riding across
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Speaker 1: that wide valley. He did not notice any one else
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Speaker 1: had come up to the keep after him, until he
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Speaker 1: heard a soft voice behind him saying, well, miss Beaumont,
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Speaker 1: here's the view. Something in the accent pointed to a
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Speaker 1: jest in the name. It's a dear old town, brother George,
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Speaker 1: answered another voice that sounded familiar enough, and turning his head,
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Speaker 1: mister Hoopdriver saw the other man in brown and the
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Speaker 1: young lady in gray, with their backs toward him. She
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Speaker 1: turned her smiling profile toward Hoopdriver. Only you know, brothers
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Speaker 1: don't call their sisters. She glanced over her shoulder and
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Speaker 1: saw Hoopdriver. Damn, said the other man in brown, quite audibly,
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Speaker 1: starting as he followed her glance. Mister Hoopdriver, with a
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Speaker 1: fine air of indifference, resumed the wheeled. Beautiful old town.
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Speaker 1: Isn't it, said the other man in brown, After a
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Speaker 1: quite perceptible pause. Isn't it? Said the young lady in gray.
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Speaker 1: Another pause began. Can't get alone anywhere, said the other
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Speaker 1: man and Brown, looking round. Then mister hoopdriver perceived clearly
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Speaker 1: that he was in the way and decided to retreat.
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Speaker 1: It was just his luck, of course, that he should
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Speaker 1: stumble at the head of the steps and vanish with indignity.
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Speaker 1: This was the third time that he'd seen him, and
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Speaker 1: the fourth time her, and of course he was too
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Speaker 1: big a fat head to raise his cap to her.
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Speaker 1: He thought of that at the foot of the keep.
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Speaker 1: Apparently they aimed at the south coast, just as he did.
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Speaker 1: He'd get up betimes the next day and hurry off
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Speaker 1: to avoid her them. That is, it never occurred to
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Speaker 1: mister Hoopdriver that Miss Beaumont and her brother might do
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Speaker 1: exactly the same thing, And that evening, at least, the
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Speaker 1: peculiarity of a brother calling his sister Miss Beaumont did
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Speaker 1: not recur to him. He was much too preoccupied with
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Speaker 1: an analysis of his own share of these encounters. He
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Speaker 1: found it hard to be altogether satisfied about the figure.
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Speaker 1: He had cut revise his memories, as he would once more,
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Speaker 1: quite unintentionally stumbled upon these two people. It was about
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Speaker 1: seven o'clock. He stopped outside a linen drapers and peered
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Speaker 1: over the goods in the window. At the assistant's in torment.
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Speaker 1: He could have spent a whole day happily At that
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Speaker 1: he told himself that he was trying to see how
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Speaker 1: they dressed out the brass lines over their counters in
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Speaker 1: a purely professional spirit. But down at the very bottom
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Speaker 1: of his heart he knew better the customers or secondary consideration,
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Speaker 1: And it was only after the lapse of perhaps a
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Speaker 1: minute that he perceived that among them was the young
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Speaker 1: lady in gray. He turned away from the window at
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Speaker 1: once and saw the other man in brown, standing at
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Speaker 1: the edge of the pavement and regarding him with a
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Speaker 1: very curious expression of face. There came into mister Hoopdriver's
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Speaker 1: head the curious problem whether he was to be regarded
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Speaker 1: as a nuisance haunting these people, or whether they were
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Speaker 1: to be regarded as a nuisance haunting him. He abandoned
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Speaker 1: the solution at last, in despair, quite unable to decide
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Speaker 1: upon the course he should take at the next encounter,
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Speaker 1: whether he should scowl savagely at the couple or assume
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Speaker 1: an attitude eloquent of apology and propitiation. Chapter ten, The
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Speaker 1: Imaginings of mister Hoopdriver's Heart. Mister Hoopdriver was, in the
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Speaker 1: days of this story a poet, though he had never
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Speaker 1: written a line of verse or perhaps romancer will describe
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Speaker 1: him better like I know not how many of those
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Speaker 1: who do the fetching and caring of life, a great
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Speaker 1: number of them. Certainly, his real life was absolutely uninteresting,
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Speaker 1: and if he had faced it as realistically as such
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Speaker 1: people do in mister Gissing's novels, he would probably have
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Speaker 1: come by way of drink to suicide in the course
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Speaker 1: of a year. But that was just what he had
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Speaker 1: the natural wisdom not to do. On the contrary, he
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Speaker 1: was always decorating his existence with imaginative tags, hopes and poses,
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Speaker 1: deliberate and yet quite effectual self deceptions. His experiences were
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Speaker 1: mere material for a romantic superstructure. If some power had
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Speaker 1: given Hoopdriver the gifty burns invoked to see ourselves as
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Speaker 1: ithers see us, he would probably have given it away
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Speaker 1: to some one else at the very earliest opportunity. His
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Speaker 1: entire life, you must understand, was not a continuous romance,
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Speaker 1: but a series of short stories linked only by the
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Speaker 1: general resemblance of their hero, a brown haired young fellow
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Speaker 1: commonly with blue eyes and a fair mustache, graceful rather
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Speaker 1: than strong, sharp, and resolute rather than clever c p
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Speaker 1: as the scientific books say, Page two. Invariably, this person
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Speaker 1: possessed an iron will, the stories fluctuated indefinitely. The smoking
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Speaker 1: of a cigarette converted Hoopdriver's hero into something entirely worldly,
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Speaker 1: subtly rakish, with a humorous twinkle in the eye and
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Speaker 1: some gallant sinning in the background. You should have seen
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Speaker 1: mister Hoopdriver promenading the brilliant gardens at Earl's Court on
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Speaker 1: an early closing night. His meaning glances, I dare not
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Speaker 1: give the meaning such an influence as the eloquence of
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Speaker 1: a revivalist preacher would suffice to divert the story into
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Speaker 1: absolutely different channels. Make him a white, soured hero, a
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Speaker 1: man still pure, walking, untainted and brave and helpful through
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Speaker 1: miry ways. The appearance of some daintily gloved, frock coated
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Speaker 1: gentleman with buttonhole and eyeglasses, complete, gallantly attendant in the
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Speaker 1: rear of customers, served again to start visions of a simplicity,
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Speaker 1: essentially cromwell like, of sturdy plainness, of a strong, silent
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Speaker 1: man going righteously through the world. This day there had
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Speaker 1: predominated a fine, leisurely person, immaculately clothed and writing on
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Speaker 1: an unexceptional machine, a mysterious person, quite unostentatious, but with
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Speaker 1: accidental self revelation of something over the common even of Blumenduc,
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Speaker 1: it might be incognito on the tour of the South coast.
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Speaker 1: You must not think that there was any telling of
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Speaker 1: these stories, of this lifelong series by mister Hoopdriver. He
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Speaker 1: never dreamt that they were known to a soul. If
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Speaker 1: it were not for the trouble, I would, I think,
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Speaker 1: go back and rewrite this section from the beginning, expunging
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Speaker 1: the statement that Hoopdriver was a poet and a romancer,
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Speaker 1: and saying instead that he was a playwright and acted
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Speaker 1: his own plays. He was not only the sole performer,
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Speaker 1: but the entire audience, and the entertainment kept him almost
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Speaker 1: continuously happy. Yet even that playwright comparison scarcely expresses all
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Speaker 1: the facts of the case. After all, very many of
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Speaker 1: his dreams never got acted at all, possibly indeed most
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Speaker 1: of them the dreams of a solitary walk, for instance,
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Speaker 1: or of a tram car ride. The dreams dreamt behind
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Speaker 1: the counter while trade was slack and mechanical foldings and
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Speaker 1: rollings occupied his muscles. Most of them were little dramatic situations,
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Speaker 1: crucial dialogs, the return of mister hoopdriver to his native village,
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Speaker 1: for instance, in a well cut holiday and natty gloves,
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Speaker 1: the unheard asides of the rival neighbors, the delight of
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Speaker 1: the old, matter, the intelligence a ten pound rise, all
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Speaker 1: at once from mantrobis matter, what do you think of that?
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Speaker 1: Or again the first whispering of love, dainty and witty
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Speaker 1: and tender to the girl he served a few days
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Speaker 1: ago with seteene or gallant rescue of generalized beauty and
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Speaker 1: distress from truculent, insult or ravenous dog. So many people
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Speaker 1: do this, and you never suspect it. You see a
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Speaker 1: tattered lad selling matches in the street, and you think
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Speaker 1: there is nothing between him and the bleakness of immensity,
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Speaker 1: between him and utter abasement, but a few tattered rags
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Speaker 1: and a feeble musculature, and all unseen by you, a
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Speaker 1: host of heaven sent fatuities swaths about him. Even may
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Speaker 1: be as they swathe you about. Many men have never
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Speaker 1: seen their own profiles or the backs of their heads.
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Speaker 1: And for the back of your own mind no mirror
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Speaker 1: has been invented. They swathe him about so thickly that
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Speaker 1: the pricks of fate scarce penetrate to him, or become
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Speaker 1: but a pleasant titillation. And so indeed it is with
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Speaker 1: all of us who go on living self. Deception is
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Speaker 1: the anesthetic of life, while God is carving out our beings.
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Speaker 1: But to return from this general vivisection to mister Hoopdriver's imaginings,
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Speaker 1: you see now how external our view has been. We
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Speaker 1: have had but the slightest transitory glimpses of the drama
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Speaker 1: within of how the things looked in the magic mirror
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Speaker 1: of mister Hoopdriver's mind. On the road to Guildford, and
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Speaker 1: during his encounters with his haunting fellow cyclists, the drama
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Speaker 1: had presented chiefly the quiet gentleman to whom we have alluded.
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Speaker 1: But at Guildford, under more varied stimuli, he burgeoned out
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Speaker 1: more variously. There was the house agent's window, for instance,
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Speaker 1: set him upon a charming little comedy. He would go in,
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Speaker 1: make inquiries about that thirty pound house, get the key, possibly,
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Speaker 1: and go over it. The thing would stimulate the clerk's
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Speaker 1: curiosity immensely. He searched his mind for a reason for
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Speaker 1: this proceeding, and discovered that he was a dynamite needing privacy.
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Speaker 1: Upon that theory, he procured the key, explored the house carefully,
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Speaker 1: said darkly that it might suit his special needs, but
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Speaker 1: that there were others to consult. The clerk, however, did
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Speaker 1: not understand the illusion and merely pitied him as one
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Speaker 1: who had married young impaired himself to a stronger mind
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Speaker 1: than his own. This proceeding, in some occult way, led
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Speaker 1: to the purchase of a notebook and pencil, and that
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Speaker 1: started the conception of an artist taking notes. That was
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Speaker 1: a little game mister Hoopdriver had in congenial company, played
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Speaker 1: in his still younger days, to the infinite annoyance of
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Speaker 1: quite a number of respectable excursionists at Hastings. In early days,
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Speaker 1: mister Hoopdriver had been, as his mother proudly boasted, a
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Speaker 1: bit of a drawer. But a conscientious and normally stupid
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Speaker 1: schoolmaster perceived the insipid talent and had nipped it in
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Speaker 1: the bud by a series of lessons in art. However,
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Speaker 1: our principal character figured about quite happily in old corners
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Speaker 1: of Guildford, and once the other man in brown, looking
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Speaker 1: out of the bay window of the Earl of Kent,
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Speaker 1: saw him standing in a corner by a gateway, notebook
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Speaker 1: in hand busily sketching the earl's imposing features, at which
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Speaker 1: side the other man in brown started back from the
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Speaker 1: center of the window so as to be hidden from him,
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Speaker 1: and crouching slightly, watched him intently through the inter circes.
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Speaker 1: In the Lace Curtains, Chapter eleven omissions. Now, the rest
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Speaker 1: of the acts of mister Hoopdriver in Guildford on the
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Speaker 1: great opening day of his holidays are not to be
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Speaker 1: detailed here. How he wandered about the old town in
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Speaker 1: the dusk, and up to the hog's back, to see
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Speaker 1: the little lamps below and the little stars above come
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Speaker 1: out one after another. How he returned through the yellow
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Speaker 1: lit streets to the Yellow Hammer Coffee tavern and supped
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Speaker 1: bravely in the commercial room, a man among men. How
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Speaker 1: he joined in the top talk about flying machines and
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Speaker 1: the possibilities of electricity, witnessing that flying machines were dead,
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Speaker 1: certain to come, and that electricity was wonderful, wonderful. How
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Speaker 1: he went and watched the billiard playing, and said left
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Speaker 1: em several times with an oracular air. And how he
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Speaker 1: fell a yawning, And how he got out his cycling
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Speaker 1: map and studied it intently. Are things that find no
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Speaker 1: mention here, Nor will I enlarge upon his going into
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Speaker 1: the writing room and marking the road from London to
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Speaker 1: Guildford with a fine bright line in the reddest of
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Speaker 1: red Ink. In his little cyclist's hand book there is
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Speaker 1: a diary, And in the diary there is an entry
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Speaker 1: of these things. It is there to this day, and
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Speaker 1: I cannot do better than reproduce it here to witness
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Speaker 1: that this book is indeed a true one, and no
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Speaker 1: lying fable written to while away an hour. At last
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Speaker 1: he fell a yawning, so much that very reluctantly, indeed,
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Speaker 1: he set about finishing this great and splendid day, alas
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Speaker 1: that all days must end. At last he got his
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Speaker 1: candle in the hall from a friendly waiting maid, and
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Speaker 1: passed upward whither a modest novelist who writes for the
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Speaker 1: family circle, dare not follow. Yet, I may tell you
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Speaker 1: that he knelt down at his bedside, happy and drowsy,
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Speaker 1: and said, our father chart in heaven, even as he
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Speaker 1: had learnt it by wrote from his mother nearly twenty
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Speaker 1: years ago, and anon, when his breathing had come deep
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Speaker 1: and regular, we may creep into his bedroom and catch
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Speaker 1: him at his dreams. He is lying upon his left side,
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Speaker 1: with his arm under the pillow. It is dark and
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Speaker 1: he is hidden. But if you could have seen his
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Speaker 1: face sleeping there in the darkness, I think you would
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Speaker 1: have perceived, in spite of the treasured, then straggling mustache,
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Speaker 1: in spite of your memory of the coarse words he
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Speaker 1: had used that day, that the man before you was,
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Speaker 1: after all only a little child asleep. Chapter twelve, The
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Speaker 1: Dreams of mister Hoopdriver. In spite of the drawn blinds
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Speaker 1: in the darkness, you have just seen mister Hoopdriver's face,
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Speaker 1: peaceful in its beauty, sleep in the little plain bedroom
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Speaker 1: at the very top of the Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern
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Speaker 1: at Guildford. That was before midnight. As the night progressed,
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Speaker 1: he was disturbed by dreams. After your first day of cycling,
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Speaker 1: one dream is inevitable. A memory of motion lingers in
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Speaker 1: the muscles of your legs, and round and round they
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Speaker 1: seem to go. You ride through dreamland on wonderful dream
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Speaker 1: bicycles that change and grow. You ride down steeples and staircases,
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Speaker 1: and over precipice. You hover in horrible suspense over inhabited towns.
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Speaker 1: Vainly seeking for a break your hand cannot find to
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Speaker 1: save you from a headlong fall. You plunge into weltering
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Speaker 1: rivers and rush helplessly at monstrous obstacles. A non mister
20:56
Speaker 1: hoopdriver found himself riding out of the darkness of non existence,
21:00
Speaker 1: peddling Ezekiel's wheels across the weld of Surrey, jolting over
21:04
Speaker 1: the hills and smashing villages in his course, while the
21:08
Speaker 1: other man in brown cursed and swore at him and
21:11
Speaker 1: shouted to stop his career. There was the Putney heath
21:15
Speaker 1: keeper too, and the man in drab raging at him.
21:19
Speaker 1: He felt an awful fool a what is it? A
21:23
Speaker 1: juggin's a a juggernaut? The villages went off, one after
21:27
Speaker 1: another with a soft, squashing noise. He did not see
21:31
Speaker 1: the young lady in gray, but he knew that she
21:33
Speaker 1: was looking at his back. He dared not look around
21:37
Speaker 1: where the devil was the break it must have fallen off,
21:41
Speaker 1: and the bell right in front of him was Guildford.
21:44
Speaker 1: He tried to shout and warned the town to get
21:46
Speaker 1: out of the way, but his voice was gone as well. Nearer, nearer,
21:51
Speaker 1: it was fearful, and in another moment the houses were
21:54
Speaker 1: cracking like nuts, and the blood of the inhabitants squirting
21:57
Speaker 1: this way, and that the street were black, with people
22:01
Speaker 1: running right under his wheels. He saw the young lady
22:04
Speaker 1: in gray. A feeling of horror came upon mister Hoopdriver.
22:08
Speaker 1: He flung himself sideways to descend, forgetting how high he was,
22:12
Speaker 1: and forthwith he began falling, falling, falling. He woke up
22:18
Speaker 1: and turned over, saw the new moon in the window,
22:22
Speaker 1: wondered a little, and went to sleep again. This second
22:25
Speaker 1: dream went back into the first somehow, and the other
22:28
Speaker 1: man in brown came, threatening and shouting toward him. He
22:32
Speaker 1: grew uglier and uglier as he approached, and his expression
22:35
Speaker 1: was intolerably evil. He came and looked close into mister
22:39
Speaker 1: Hoopdriver's eyes, and then receded to an incredible distance. His
22:44
Speaker 1: face seemed to be luminous. Miss Beaumont, he said, and
22:49
Speaker 1: splashed up a spray of suspicion. Some one began letting
22:52
Speaker 1: off fireworks, chiefly Catherine Wheels, down the slope, though mister
22:57
Speaker 1: Hoopdriver knew it was against the rules for it seemed
23:00
Speaker 1: that the place they were in was a vast shop.
23:03
Speaker 1: And then mister Hoopdriver perceived that the other man in
23:06
Speaker 1: brown was the shop walker, differing from most shop walkers
23:10
Speaker 1: in the fact that he was lit from within as
23:13
Speaker 1: a Chinese lantern might be. And the customer mister Hoopdriver
23:17
Speaker 1: was going to serve was the young lady in gray,
23:20
Speaker 1: curious he hadn't noticed it before. She was in gray
23:23
Speaker 1: as usual rationals, and she had her bicycle leaning against
23:28
Speaker 1: the counter. She smiled quite frankly at him, just as
23:32
Speaker 1: she had done when she had apologized for stopping him,
23:35
Speaker 1: and her form as she leant toward him was full
23:38
Speaker 1: of a sinuous grace that he had never noticed before.
23:42
Speaker 1: What can I have the pleasure, said mister Hoopdriver at once,
23:45
Speaker 1: And she said the Ripley Road. So he got out
23:49
Speaker 1: the Ripley Road and unrolled it and showed it to her,
23:52
Speaker 1: and she said that would do very nicely, and kept
23:55
Speaker 1: on looking at him and smiling, And he began measuring
23:58
Speaker 1: off eight miles by means of the yard measure on
24:01
Speaker 1: the counter, eight miles being a dress length, a rational
24:05
Speaker 1: dress length, that is. And then the other man in
24:07
Speaker 1: brown came up and wanted to interfere, and said mister
24:10
Speaker 1: Hoopdriver was a cad besides measuring it off too slowly.
24:14
Speaker 1: As mister Hoopdriver began to measure faster, the other man
24:18
Speaker 1: in brown said that the young lady in gray had
24:20
Speaker 1: been there long enough, and that he was her brother,
24:24
Speaker 1: or else she would not have been traveling with him,
24:27
Speaker 1: and he suddenly whipped his arm around her waist and
24:29
Speaker 1: made off with her. It occurred to mister Hoopdriver even
24:33
Speaker 1: at the moment, that this was scarcely brotherly behavior. Of course,
24:37
Speaker 1: it wasn't. The sight of the other man gripping her
24:40
Speaker 1: so familiarly enraged him. Frightfully, he leapt over the counter
24:44
Speaker 1: forthwith and gave chase. They ran round the shop and
24:49
Speaker 1: up an iron staircase into the keep, and so out
24:52
Speaker 1: upon the Ripley Road. For some time they kept dodging
24:55
Speaker 1: in and out of a wayside hotel with two front
24:58
Speaker 1: doors and an inn yard. The other man could not
25:01
Speaker 1: run very fast because he had hold of the young
25:03
Speaker 1: lady in gray, but mister Hoopdriver was hampered by the
25:06
Speaker 1: absurd behavior of his legs. They would not stretch out.
25:10
Speaker 1: They would keep going round and round as if they
25:13
Speaker 1: were on the treadles of a wheel, so that he
25:15
Speaker 1: made the smallest steps conceivable. This dream came to no crisis.
25:21
Speaker 1: The chase seemed to last an interminable time, and all
25:24
Speaker 1: kinds of people heath keepers, shopmen, policemen, the old man
25:28
Speaker 1: in the keep, the angry man in drab, the bar
25:32
Speaker 1: made of the unicorn, men with flying machines, people playing
25:36
Speaker 1: billiards in the doorways, silly headless figures, stupid cocks and hens,
25:41
Speaker 1: encumbered with parcels and umbrellas and waterproofs, people carrying bedroom
25:45
Speaker 1: candles and such like. Refraff kept getting in his way
25:49
Speaker 1: and annoying him, although he sounded his electric bell and
25:52
Speaker 1: said wonderful, wonderful, at every corner. End of Section four