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The Wheels of Chance Chapters 28 & 29 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Part ten of the Wheels of Chance. This is a
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  Speaker 1: The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells, Chapter twenty eight,
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  Speaker 1: the departure from Chichester. He caused his sister to be
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  Speaker 1: called repeatedly, and when she came down, explained with a
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  Speaker 1: humorous smile, his legal relationship to the bicycle in the
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  Speaker 1: yard might be disagreeable. You know. His anxiety was obvious enough.
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  Speaker 1: Very well, she said, quick, frequently, hurry breakfast and we'll
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  Speaker 1: ride out. I want to talk things over with you.
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  Speaker 1: The girl seemed more beautiful than ever after the night's sleep,
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  Speaker 1: her hair in comely dark waves from her forehead, her ungauntleted,
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  Speaker 1: finger tips pink and cool, and how decided she was.
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  Speaker 1: Breakfast was a nervous ceremony, conversation fraternal. But then the
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  Speaker 1: waiter overawed him and he was caught by a multiplicity
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  Speaker 1: of forks. But she called him Chris. They discussed their
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  Speaker 1: route over his sixpenny county map for the sake of talking,
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  Speaker 1: but avoided a decision in the presence of the attendant.
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  Speaker 1: The five pound note was changed for the bill, and,
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  Speaker 1: through Hoopdriver's determination to be quite the gentleman, the waiter
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  Speaker 1: and the chambermaid cut half a crown each the ostler
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  Speaker 1: a florin all a days, said the ostler to himself,
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  Speaker 1: without gratitude. The public mounting of the bicycles in the
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  Speaker 1: street was a moment of trepidation. A policeman actually stopped
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  Speaker 1: and watched them from the opposite kerb Suppose him to
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  Speaker 1: come across and ask, is that your bicycle, sir? Fight?
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  Speaker 1: Or drop it and run? It was a time of
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  Speaker 1: bewildering apprehension too, going through the streets of the town,
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  Speaker 1: so that a milk cart barely escaped destruction under mister
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  Speaker 1: Hoopdriver's chancy wheel. That recalled him to a sense of
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  Speaker 1: erratic steering, and he himself together in the lanes. He
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  Speaker 1: breathed freer, and a less formal conversation presently began. You've
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  Speaker 1: ridden out of Chichester in a great hurry, said Jesse. Well,
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  Speaker 1: the fact is I'm worried just a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: this machine. Of course, she said, I had forgotten that.
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  Speaker 1: But where are we going? Just a turning or two
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  Speaker 1: more if you don't mind, said Hoopdriver, just a mile
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  Speaker 1: or so I have to think of you. You know
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  Speaker 1: I should feel more easy if we was locked up.
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  Speaker 1: You know not that I should mind on my own account.
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  Speaker 1: They rode with a streaky gray sea coming and going
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  Speaker 1: on their left hand. Every mile they put between themselves.
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  Speaker 1: In Chichester, mister Hoopdriver felt a little less conscious, stricken,
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  Speaker 1: and a little more of the gallant desperado. Here he
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  Speaker 1: was riding on a splendid machine with a slap up
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  Speaker 1: girl beside him. What would they think of it in
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  Speaker 1: the emporium if any of them were to see him?
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  Speaker 1: He imagined in detail the astonishment of Miss Isaacs and
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  Speaker 1: of Miss Howe's why it's mister Hoopdriver. Miss Isaacs would
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  Speaker 1: say never emphatically from Miss Howe. Then he played with Briggs,
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  Speaker 1: and then he tried g V in a shay fance,
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  Speaker 1: introducing m to her my sister produm. He was her brother, Chris, Chris,
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  Speaker 1: What confound it? Harrington? Harrington something like that. Have to
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  Speaker 1: keep off that topic till he could remember. Wish he
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  Speaker 1: had told her the truth. Now almost he glanced at her.
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  Speaker 1: She was riding with her eyes straight ahead of her,
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  Speaker 1: thinking a little perplexed she seemed. He noticed how well
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  Speaker 1: she rode, and that she rode with her lips closed,
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  Speaker 1: a thing he could never manage. Mister Hoopdriver's mind came
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  Speaker 1: round to the future. What was she going to do?
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  Speaker 1: What were they both going to do? His thoughts took
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  Speaker 1: a graver color. He had rescued her. This was fine,
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  Speaker 1: manly rescuer. He was engaged upon she ought to go
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  Speaker 1: home in spite of that stepmother. He must insist gravely
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  Speaker 1: but firmly upon that she was the spirited sort, of course,
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  Speaker 1: But still wonder if she had any money. Wonder what
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  Speaker 1: the second class fare from Haven't to London is. Of
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  Speaker 1: course he would have to pay that it was the
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  Speaker 1: regular thing, he being a gentleman. Then should he take
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  Speaker 1: her home? He began to rough in a moving sketch
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  Speaker 1: of the return. The stepmother, repentant of her indescribable cruelties,
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  Speaker 1: would be present. Even these rich people have their troubles.
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  Speaker 1: Probably an uncle or to that footman would announce mister
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  Speaker 1: bother that name, and miss Milton. Then two women weeping together,
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  Speaker 1: and a knightly figure in the background, dressed in a
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  Speaker 1: handsome Norfolk jacket, still conspicuously new. He would conceal his
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  Speaker 1: feeling until the very end. Then leaving, he would pause
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  Speaker 1: in the doorway in such an attitude as mister George
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  Speaker 1: Alexander might aay soon and say, slowly and dwindlingly, be
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  Speaker 1: kind to her, be kind to her. And so depart,
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  Speaker 1: heartbroken to the meanest intelligence. But that was a matter
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  Speaker 1: for the future. He would have to begin discussing the
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  Speaker 1: return soon. There was no traffic along the road, and
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  Speaker 1: he came up beside her. He had fallen behind in
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  Speaker 1: his musing. She began to talk. Mister Denison, she began,
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  Speaker 1: and then doubtfully, that is your name. I'm very stupid
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  Speaker 1: it is, said mister hoopdriver. Denison. Was it Denison? Denison? Denison?
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  Speaker 1: What was she saying? I wonder how far you are
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  Speaker 1: willing to help me? Confoundedly hard to answer a question
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  Speaker 1: like that on the spur of the moment without staring widely,
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  Speaker 1: you may rely, said mister hoopdriver, recovering from a violent wobble.
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  Speaker 1: I can assure you I want to help you very much.
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  Speaker 1: Don't consider me at all, leastways, consider me entirely at
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  Speaker 1: your service, nuisance, not to be able to say this
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  Speaker 1: kind of thing, right. You see, I'm so awkwardly situated.
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  Speaker 1: If I can only help you, you'll make me very happy.
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  Speaker 1: There was a pause round a bend in the road
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  Speaker 1: that came upon a grassy space between the hedge and road,
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  Speaker 1: set with yarrow and meadow sweet where a felled tree
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  Speaker 1: lay upon the green. There she dismounted, and, propping her
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  Speaker 1: machine against a stone, sat down. Here. We can talk,
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  Speaker 1: she said, Yes, said mister hoopdriver. Expectant, she answered, after
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  Speaker 1: a little while, sitting elbow on knee, her chin in
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  Speaker 1: her hand and looking straight in front of her. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know. I am resolved to live my own life,
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  Speaker 1: of course, said mister hoopdriver. Naturally, I want to live,
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  Speaker 1: and I want to see what life means. I want
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  Speaker 1: to learn. Everyone is hurrying me. Everything is hurrying me.
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  Speaker 1: I want time to think. Mister hoopdriver was puzzled but admiring.
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  Speaker 1: It was wonderful how clear and ready her words were.
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  Speaker 1: But then one might well speak well with a throat
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  Speaker 1: and lips like that. He knew he was inadequate, but
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  Speaker 1: he tried to meet the occasion. If you let them
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  Speaker 1: rush you into anything, you might repent. Of of course,
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  Speaker 1: you'd be very silly, he said. Don't you want to learn?
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  Speaker 1: She asked, I was wondering only this morning, he began
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  Speaker 1: and stopped. She was too intent upon her own thoughts
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  Speaker 1: to notice this insufficiency. I find myself in life, and
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  Speaker 1: it terrifies me. I seem to be like a little
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  Speaker 1: speck whirling on a wheel, suddenly caught up. What am
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  Speaker 1: I here for? I ask simply to be here a time.
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  Speaker 1: I asked it a week ago, I asked it yesterday,
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  Speaker 1: and I asked it to day. And little things happen,
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  Speaker 1: and the days pass. My stepmother takes me shopping, people
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  Speaker 1: come to tea, there's a new play to pass the time,
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  Speaker 1: a concert or a novel. The wheels of the world
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  Speaker 1: go on turning, turning. It's horrible. I want to do
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  Speaker 1: a miracle like Joshua and stopped the whirl until I
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  Speaker 1: have fought it out at home. It's impossible, mister hoopdriver
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  Speaker 1: stroked his mustache. It is so, he said, in a
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  Speaker 1: meditative tone. Things will go on. The faint breath of
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  Speaker 1: summer stirred the trees, and a bunch of dandelion puff
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  Speaker 1: lifted among the meadow. Suite and struck and broke into
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  Speaker 1: a dozen separate threads against his knee. They flew on
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  Speaker 1: apart and sank as for the breeze, fell among the grass,
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  Speaker 1: some to germinate, some to perish. His eye followed them
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  Speaker 1: until they had vanished. I can't go back to Surbiton,
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  Speaker 1: said the young lady and Gray. Ah, said mister Hoopdriver,
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  Speaker 1: catching at his mustache. This was unexpected development. I want
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  Speaker 1: to write, you see, said the young lady and gray,
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  Speaker 1: to write books and alter things, to do good. I
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  Speaker 1: want to lead a free life and own myself. I
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  Speaker 1: can't go back. I want to obtain a position as
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  Speaker 1: a journalist. I have been told, but I know no
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  Speaker 1: one to help me at once, no one that I
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  Speaker 1: could go to. There is one person, she was a
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  Speaker 1: mistress at my school. If I could write to her,
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  Speaker 1: But then how could I get her answer? Humph, said
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  Speaker 1: mister hoopdriver, very grave. I can't trouble you much more.
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  Speaker 1: You have come, You have risked things that don't count,
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  Speaker 1: said mister hoopdriver. It's double pay to let me do it.
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  Speaker 1: So to speak. It is good of you to say
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  Speaker 1: that Surbiton is so conventional. I am resolved. To be
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  Speaker 1: unconventional at any cost, But we are so hampered. If
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  Speaker 1: I could only burgeon out of all that hinders me,
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  Speaker 1: I want to struggle to take my place in the world.
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  Speaker 1: I want to be my own mistress, to shape my
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  Speaker 1: own career. But my stepmother objects, so she does as
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  Speaker 1: she likes herself, and is strict with me to ease
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  Speaker 1: her conscience. And if I go back now, go back
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  Speaker 1: owning myself beaten. She left the rest to his imagination.
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  Speaker 1: I see that, agreed mister Hoopdriver. He must help her
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  Speaker 1: with his skull. He was doing some intricate arithmetic with
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  Speaker 1: five pounds, six and twopence. In some vague way. He
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  Speaker 1: inferred from all this that Jesse was trying to escape
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  Speaker 1: from an undesirable marriage, but was saying these things out
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  Speaker 1: of modesty. His circle of ideas was so limited. You know, mister,
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  Speaker 1: I've forgotten your name again. Mister Hoopdriver seemed lost in abstraction.
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  Speaker 1: You can't go back, of course, quite like that, he
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  Speaker 1: said thoughtfully. His ears were suddenly red and his cheeks flushed.
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  Speaker 1: But what is your name name, said mister Hoopdriver. Why Benson,
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  Speaker 1: of course, mister Benson. Yes, it's really very stupid of me.
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  Speaker 1: But I can never remember names. I must make note
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  Speaker 1: on my cuff. She clicked a little silver pencil and
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  Speaker 1: wrote the name down. If I could write to my friend,
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  Speaker 1: I believe she would be able to help me to
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  Speaker 1: an independent life. I could write to her or telegraph write.
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  Speaker 1: I think I could scarcely explain in a telegram. I
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  Speaker 1: know she would help me. Clearly, there was only one
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  Speaker 1: course open to a gentleman under the circumstances. In that case,
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  Speaker 1: said mister hoopdriver, if you don't mind trusting yourself to
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  Speaker 1: a stranger, we might continue as we are, perhaps for
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  Speaker 1: a day or so, until you heard suppose thirty shilling
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  Speaker 1: a day that gives four days, say four thirty as
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  Speaker 1: hun and twenty six quid. Well three days, say four ten.
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  Speaker 1: You are very good to me. His expression was eloquent.
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  Speaker 1: Very well then, and thank you. It's wonderful. It's more
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  Speaker 1: than I deserve that you. She dropped the theme abruptly.
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  Speaker 1: What was our bill at Chichester, ay, said mister hoopdriver,
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  Speaker 1: fanying a certain stupidity. There was a brief discussion. Secretly,
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  Speaker 1: he was delighted at her insistence in paying. She carried
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  Speaker 1: her point, their talk came round to their immediate plans
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  Speaker 1: for the day. They decided to ride easily through Haven't
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  Speaker 1: and stop perhaps at Fareham or Southampton, for the previous
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  Speaker 1: day had tired them both. Holding the map extended on
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  Speaker 1: his knee, mister Hoopdriver's eye fell by chance on the
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  Speaker 1: bicycle at his feet. That bicycle, he remarked, quite irrevlently,
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't look the same machine if I got a big
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  Speaker 1: old double herilum instead of that little bell, why just
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  Speaker 1: a thought? A pause? Very well then, ofant and lunch,
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  Speaker 1: said Jesse rising. I wish somehow we could have managed
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  Speaker 1: it without stealing that machine, said mister hoopdriver, Because it
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  Speaker 1: is stealing it, you know, come to think of it. Nonsense.
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  Speaker 1: If mister Bechmel troubles you, I will tell the whole
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  Speaker 1: world if need be, I believe you would, said mister hoopdriver,
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  Speaker 1: admiring her. You're plucky enough, Goodness knows. Discovering suddenly that
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  Speaker 1: she was standing, he too, rose and picked up her machine.
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  Speaker 1: She took it and wheeled it into the road. Then
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  Speaker 1: he took his own. He paused regarding it, I say,
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  Speaker 1: said he, how'd this bike look? Now? If it was
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  Speaker 1: enameled gray. She looked over her shoulder at his grave face.
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  Speaker 1: Why try and hide it in that way? It was
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  Speaker 1: It was just a passing thought, said mister Hoopdriver airily,
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  Speaker 1: as they were riding on to Haven't. It occurred to
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  Speaker 1: mister Hoopdriver in a transitory manner that the interview had
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  Speaker 1: been quite other than his expectation. But that was the
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  Speaker 1: way with everything in mister Hoopdriver's experience. And though his
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  Speaker 1: wisdom looked grave within, and caution was chinking coins, and
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  Speaker 1: an ancient prejudice in favor of property shook her head,
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  Speaker 1: something else was there, too, shouting in his mind to
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  Speaker 1: drown all the saner considerations, the intoxicating thought of riding
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  Speaker 1: beside her all day, all tomorrow, perhaps for other days
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  Speaker 1: after that, if talking to her familiarly, being brother of
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  Speaker 1: all her slender strength and freshness, of having a golden reel,
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  Speaker 1: a wonderful time beyond all his imaginings, His old, familiar
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  Speaker 1: fancyings gave place to anticipations as impalpable and fluctuating and
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  Speaker 1: beautiful as the sunset of a summer day at Havent.
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  Speaker 1: He took an opportunity to purchase at a small hair
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  Speaker 1: dressers in the main street, a toothbrush, a pair of
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  Speaker 1: nail scissors, and a little bottle of stuff to darken
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  Speaker 1: the mustache. An article the shopman introduced to his attention,
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  Speaker 1: recommended highly, and sold in the excitement of the occasion,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty nine, The unexpected Antidote of the Lion. They
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  Speaker 1: rode on to Kojum and lunched lightly but expensively. There
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  Speaker 1: Jesse went out and posted her letter to her schoolmistress.
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  Speaker 1: Then the green height of portsdown Hill tempted them, and,
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  Speaker 1: leaving their machines in the village, they clambered up the
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  Speaker 1: slope to the silent, red brick fort that crowned it.
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  Speaker 1: Thence they had a view of Portsmouth and its cluster
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  Speaker 1: of sister towns, the crowded narrows of the harbor, the Solent,
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  Speaker 1: and the isle of White. Like a blue cloud through
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  Speaker 1: the hot haze, Jesse, by some miracle, had become a
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  Speaker 1: skirted woman. In the kazum Inn, mister Hoopdriver lounged gracefully
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  Speaker 1: on the turf, smoked a red herring cigarette, and lazily
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  Speaker 1: regarded the fortified town that spread like a map away.
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  Speaker 1: There the inner line of defense like toy fortifications a
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  Speaker 1: mile off perhaps, and beyond that a few little fields,
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  Speaker 1: and then the beginnings of Landport suburbs, and the smoky
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  Speaker 1: cluster of the multitudinous houses to the right at the
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  Speaker 1: head of the harbor shallows, the town of Portchester rose
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  Speaker 1: among the trees. Mister Hoopdriver's anxiety receded to some remote
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  Speaker 1: corner of his brain, and that florid, half voluntary imagining
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  Speaker 1: of his sharing the stage with the image of Jesse.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: He began to speculate on the impression he was creating.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: He took stock of his suit optimistically again, and reviewed
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  Speaker 1: with some complaisance his actions for the last four days
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  Speaker 1: and twenty hours. Then he was dashed at the thought
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  Speaker 1: of her infinite perfections. She had been observing him quietly,
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  Speaker 1: rather more closely during the last hour or so. She
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  Speaker 1: did not look at him directly, because he seemed always
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  Speaker 1: looking at her. Her own troubles had quieted down a little,
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  Speaker 1: and her curiosity about the chivalrous, worshiping but singular gentleman
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  Speaker 1: in Brown was awakening. She had recalled too the curious
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  Speaker 1: incident of their first encounter. She found him hard to
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  Speaker 1: explain to herself you must understand that her knowledge of
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  Speaker 1: the world was rather less than nothing, having been obtained
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  Speaker 1: entirely from books. You must not take a certain ignorance
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  Speaker 1: for foolishness. She had begun with a few experiments. He
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: did not know French except siver play, a phrase he
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: seemed to regard as a very good light table joke
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  Speaker 1: in itself. His English was uncertain, but not such as
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  Speaker 1: books informed her, distinguished the lower class. His manners seemed
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  Speaker 1: to her good on the whole, but a trifle over
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  Speaker 1: respectful and out of fashion. He called her madam once.
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  Speaker 1: He seemed a person of means and leisure, but he
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: knew nothing of recent concerts, theaters or books. How did
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  Speaker 1: he spend his time? He was certainly chivalrous and a
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: trifle simple minded. She fancied, So much is there in
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  Speaker 1: a change of costume? That she had never met such
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  Speaker 1: a man before? What could he be, mister Benson, she said,
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  Speaker 1: breaking a silence devoted to landscape. He rolled over and
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: regarded her, chin on knuckles as your service? Do you paint?
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  Speaker 1: Are you an artist? Well? Judicious pause, I should hardly
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  Speaker 1: call myself an artist, you know, I do paint a
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: little and sketch, you know, skiddy kind of things. He
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  Speaker 1: plucked and began to nibble a blade of grass. It
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  Speaker 1: was really not so much lying as his quick imagination
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  Speaker 1: that prompted him to add in papers, you know, and
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  Speaker 1: all that I see, said Jesse, looking at him thoughtfully.
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  Speaker 1: Artists were a very heterogeneous class, certainly, and genius had
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  Speaker 1: a trick of being a little odd. He avoided her
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  Speaker 1: eye and bit his grass. I don't do much, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's not your profession. Oh no, said Hoopdriver, anxious now
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  Speaker 1: to hedge. I don't make a regular thing of it,
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  Speaker 1: you know, Just now and then something comes into my
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  Speaker 1: head and down it goes. Oh, I'm not a regular
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  Speaker 1: artist that you don't practice any regular profession. Mister Hoopdriver
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: looked into her eyes and saw their quite unsuspicious regard.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: He had vague ideas of resuming the detective role. It's
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  Speaker 1: like this, he said, to gain time. I have a
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  Speaker 1: sort of profession. Only there's a kind of reason. Nothing much,
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  Speaker 1: you know. I beg your pardon for cross examining you.
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  Speaker 1: No trouble, said mister Hoopdriver. Only I can't very well.
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  Speaker 1: I'll leave it to you. You know, I don't want
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  Speaker 1: to make any mystery of it, So far as that goes,
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  Speaker 1: should he plunge boldly and be a barrister? That, anyhow,
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  Speaker 1: was something pretty good. But she might know about the Barristery.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I think I could guess what you are, well guess,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: said mister hoopdriver. You come from one of the colonies,
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  Speaker 1: dear me, said mister hoopdriver, veering round to the new wind.
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  Speaker 1: How did you find out that the man was born
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: in a London suburb, dear reader, I guessed, she said.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: He lifted his eyebrow as one astonished, and clutched a
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: new piece of grass. You were educated up country. Good again,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: said hoopdriver, rolling over again upon his elbow. You're a clairvoyant,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: he bit at the grass, smiling. Which colony was it
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: that I don't know? You must guess, said hoopdriver. South Africa,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: she said. I strongly inclined to South Africa. Africa. South
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Africa's quite a large place, he said. But South Africa
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: is right. You're warm, said hoopdriver. Anyhow, and the while
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: his imagination was eagerly exploring this new province. South Africa
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: is right, she insisted. He turned over again and nodded,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: smiling reassuringly into her eyes. What made me think of
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: South Africa was that novel of Olive Shriner. You know,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the story of an African firm. Gregory Ross is so
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: like you. I never read the story of an African firm,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: said hoopdriver. I must, what's he like? You must read
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the book. But it's a wonderful place, with its mixture
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of races and its brand new civilization, jolsting the old savagery.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Were you near Kama? He was a long way off
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: from your place, said mister hoopdriver. We had a little
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: ostrich farm, you know, just a few hundred of em
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: out Johannesburg way on the krew was it called, that's
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the term. Some of it was freehold, though luckily we
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: got along very well in the old days. But there's
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: no ostriches on that farm. Now. He had a diamond
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: mine in his head just at the moment, but he
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: stopped and left a little to the girl's imagination. Besides
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: which it had occurred to him with a kind of
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: shock that he was lying. What becomes of the ostriches?
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: We sold em off when we parted with the farm.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Do you mind if I have another cigarette. That was
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: when I was a little chap. You know that we
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: had this ostridge farm. Did you have blacks and boars
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: about you? Lots? Said mister hoopdriver, striking a match on
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: his instep and beginning to feel hot at the new
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: responsibility he had brought upon himself. How interesting do you know?
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I've never been out of England except to Paris and
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Mentone and Switzerland. One gets tired of traveling puff after
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: a bit. Of course, you must tell me about your
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: farm in southern Africa. It always stimulates my imagination. And
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: to think of all the places I can fancy, all
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the tall ostriches being driven out by a black herd
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: to grays. I suppose how do ostriches feed? Well, said hoopdriver.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: That's rather various. They have their fancies. You know. There's fruit,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of course, and that kind of thing, and chicken food
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and so forth. You have to use judgment. Did you
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: ever see a lion? They weren't very common in our district,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: said hoopdriver, quite modestly. But once I've seen them, of course,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: once or twice. Fancy seeing a lion, weren't you frightened?
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Mister hoopdriver now was thoroughly sorry he had accepted that
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: offer of South Africa. He puffed his cigarette and regarded
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the solent languidly, and he settled that fate of that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: lion in his mind. I scarcely had time, he said.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: It all happened in a minute. Go on, she said,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I was going across the inner paddockt where the fatted
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: ostriches were. Did you eat ostriches? Then, I did not know?
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Eat them often? Very nice? They are too properly stuffed.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Well we I rather was going across the paddock and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I saw something standing up in the moonlight and looking
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: at me. Mister Hoopdriver was in hot perspiration. Now his
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: invention seemed to have gone limp. Luckily I had my
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: father's gun with me. I was scared, though, I can
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: tell you puff. I just aimed at the end that
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: I thought was the head and let fly puff and
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: over it went, you know, dead as dead. It was
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: one of the luckiest shots I ever fired. And I
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't much over nine at the time. Either. I should
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: have screamed and run away. There's some things he can
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: run away from, said mister Hoopdriver. To run would have
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: been death. I don't think I ever met a lion
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: killer before, she remarked, evidently with a heightened opinion of him.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: There was a pause, she seemed, meditating further question. Mister
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Hoopdriver drew his watch hastily, I say, said mister Hoopdriver,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: showing it to her. Don't you think we ought to
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: be getting on? His face was flushed, his ears bright red.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: She ascribed his confusion to modesty. He rose, with the
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: lion added to the burthens of his conscience, and held
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: out his hand to assist her. They walked down into
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: causum again, resumed their machines, and went on at a
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: leisurely pace along the northern shore of the Big Harbor.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: But mister Hoopdriver was no longer happy. This horrible, this
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: fulsome lie stuck in his memory. Why had he done it?
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: She did not ask for any more South African stories,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: happily at least until Portchester was reached. But talk instead
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of living one's own life and how custom hung on
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: people lakes chains. She talked wonderfully and set Hoopdriver's mind.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Fermenting by the castle, mister Hoopdriver caught several crabs in
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the lif little shore pool at Fareham they stopped for
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a second tea, and left the place towards the hour
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: of sunset, under such invigorating circumstances as you shall in
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: due course here end of Part ten