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The Wheels of Chance Chapters 1 to 3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Part one 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: The Wheels of Chance by H. G. Wells, Chapter one.
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  Speaker 1: The principal character in the story. If you, presuming you
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  Speaker 1: are of the sex that does such things, If you
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  Speaker 1: had gone into the drapery Emporium, which is really only
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  Speaker 1: magnificent for shop of Messr's Entrobus and co, a perfectly
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  Speaker 1: fictitious co by the bye of Putney on the fourteenth
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  Speaker 1: of August eighteen ninety five, had turned to the right
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  Speaker 1: hand side, where the blocks of white linen and piles
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  Speaker 1: of blankets rise up to the rail from which the
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  Speaker 1: pink and blue prints depend, you might have been served
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  Speaker 1: by the central figure of this story that is now beginning.
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  Speaker 1: He would have come forward, bowing and swaying. He would
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  Speaker 1: have extended two hands with largish knuckles and enormous cuffs
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  Speaker 1: over the counter. He would have asked you, protruding a
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  Speaker 1: pointed chin, and without the slightest anticipation of pleasure in
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  Speaker 1: his manner, what he might have the pleasure of showing
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  Speaker 1: you under certain circumstances, as for instance, hats, baby, linen, gloves, silks, lace,
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  Speaker 1: or curtains, he simply would have bowed, politely and with
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  Speaker 1: a drooping expression, and making a kind of circular sweep,
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  Speaker 1: invited you to step this way, and so led you
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  Speaker 1: behind his ken. But under other happier conditions Huckaback, blankets, dimity, cretonne, linen,
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  Speaker 1: calico are cases in point, he would have requested you
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  Speaker 1: take a seat, emphasizing the hospitality by leaning over the
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  Speaker 1: counter and gripping a chair back in a spasmodic manner,
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  Speaker 1: and so proceeding to obtain, unfold, and exhibit his goods
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  Speaker 1: for your consideration. Under which happier circumstances you might, if
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  Speaker 1: of an observing turn of mind and not too much
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  Speaker 1: of a housewife to be inhuman, have given the central
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  Speaker 1: figure of this story less cursory attention. Now, if you
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  Speaker 1: had noticed anything about him, it would have been chiefly
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  Speaker 1: to notice how little he was noticeable. He wore the
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  Speaker 1: black morning coat, the black tie, and the speckled gray
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  Speaker 1: nether parts descending into shadow and mystery below the counter
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  Speaker 1: of his craft. And he was of a pallid complexion,
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  Speaker 1: hair of a kind of dirty fairness, grayish eyes, and
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  Speaker 1: a skimpy, immature mustache under his peaked, indeterminate nose. His
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  Speaker 1: features were all small, but none ill shaped. A rosette
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  Speaker 1: of pins decorated the lapel of his coat. His remarks,
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  Speaker 1: you would have observed, weren't entirely what people used to
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  Speaker 1: call cliche formulae, not organic to the occasion, but stereotyped
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  Speaker 1: ages ago and learnt years since by heart. This madam,
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  Speaker 1: he would say, is selling very well. We are doing
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  Speaker 1: a very good article of four to three a yard.
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  Speaker 1: We could show you something better, of course, no trouble, madam,
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  Speaker 1: I assure you. Such were the simple counters of his intercourse.
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  Speaker 1: So I say he would have presented himself to your
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  Speaker 1: superficial observation. He would have danced about behind the counter,
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  Speaker 1: have neatly refolded the goods he had shown you, have
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  Speaker 1: put on one side those you selected, extracted a little
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  Speaker 1: book with a carbon leaf and a tinfoil sheet from
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  Speaker 1: a fixture, made you out a little bill in that
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  Speaker 1: weak flourishing hand, peculiar to drapers, and have bought sign
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  Speaker 1: Then a puffy little chop walker would have come into view,
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  Speaker 1: looking at the bill for a second, very hard, showing
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  Speaker 1: you a parting down the middle of his head. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: have scribbled still more flourishing j M all over the document.
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  Speaker 1: Have asked you if there was nothing more, have stood
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  Speaker 1: by you, supposing that you were paying cash, until the
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  Speaker 1: central figure of this story reappeared with the change. One
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  Speaker 1: glance more at him, and the puffy little shop walker
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  Speaker 1: would have been bowing you out, with fountains of so
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  Speaker 1: abilities at work all about you, and so the interview
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  Speaker 1: would have been terminated. But real literature, as distinguished from anecdote,
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  Speaker 1: does not concern itself with superficial appearances alone. Literature is revelation.
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  Speaker 1: Modern literature is indecorous revelation. It is the duty of
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  Speaker 1: the earnest author to tell you what you would not
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  Speaker 1: have seen, even at the cost of some blushes. And
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  Speaker 1: the thing that you would not have seen about this
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  Speaker 1: young man, and the thing of the greatest moment to
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  Speaker 1: this story, the thing that must be told if the
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  Speaker 1: book is to be written, was Let us face it bravely,
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  Speaker 1: the remarkable condition of this young man's legs. Let us
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  Speaker 1: approach the business with dispassionate explicitness. Let us assume something
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  Speaker 1: of the scientific spirit, the hard almost professional tone of
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  Speaker 1: the conscientious realist. Let us treat this young man's legs
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  Speaker 1: as a mere diagram and indicate the points of interest
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  Speaker 1: where the unemotional precision of the lectures pointers, and so
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  Speaker 1: to our revelation. On the internal aspect of the right
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  Speaker 1: ankle of this young man, you would have observed, ladies
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  Speaker 1: and gentlemen, a contusion and an abrasion on the internal
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  Speaker 1: aspect of the left ankle, a contrusion also on its
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  Speaker 1: external aspect, a large yellowish bruise on his left shin.
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  Speaker 1: There were two bruises, one a leaden yellow graduating here
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  Speaker 1: and there into purple, and another, obviously of a more
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  Speaker 1: recent date, of a blotchy red, tumid and threatening, proceeding
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  Speaker 1: up the left leg in a spiral manner. An unnatural
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  Speaker 1: hardness and reddish would have been discovered on the upper
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  Speaker 1: aspect of the calf and above the knee, and on
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  Speaker 1: the inner side an extraordinary expanse of bruised surface, a
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  Speaker 1: kind of closely stippled shading of contused points. The right
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  Speaker 1: leg would be found to be bruised in a marvelous
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  Speaker 1: manner all about and under the knee and particularly on
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  Speaker 1: the interior aspect of the knee. So far we may
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  Speaker 1: proceed with our details. Fired by these discoveries, an investigator
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  Speaker 1: might perhaps have pursued his inquiries further to bruises on
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  Speaker 1: the shoulders, elbows, and even the finger joints of the
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  Speaker 1: central figure of our story. He had indeed been bumped
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  Speaker 1: and battered at an extraordinary number of points. But enough
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  Speaker 1: of realistic description is as good as a feast, and
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  Speaker 1: we have exhibited sufficient for our purpose. Even in literature,
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  Speaker 1: one must know where to draw the line. Now the
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  Speaker 1: reader may be inclined to wonder how a respectable young
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  Speaker 1: shopman would have gotten his legs, and indeed himself generally,
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  Speaker 1: into such a dreadful condition. One might fancy that he
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  Speaker 1: had been sitting with his nether extremities in some complicated machinery,
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  Speaker 1: a threshing machine, say, or one of those haymaking furies.
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  Speaker 1: But Sherlock Holmes, now after a glorious career, happily and
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  Speaker 1: decently dead, would have fancied nothing of the kind. He
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  Speaker 1: would have wreck. Agnized at once that the bruises on
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  Speaker 1: the internal aspect of the leg, considered in the light
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  Speaker 1: of the distribution of the other abrasions and contusions pointed
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  Speaker 1: unmistakably to the violent impact of the mounting beginner upon
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  Speaker 1: the bicycle saddle, and that the ruinous state of the
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  Speaker 1: right knee was equally eloquent of the concussions attended on
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  Speaker 1: that person's hasty, frequently causeless and invariably ill conceived descents.
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  Speaker 1: One large bruise on the shin is even more characteristic
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  Speaker 1: of the prentice cyclist, for upon every one of them
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  Speaker 1: waits the jest of the unexpected treadle. You try at
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  Speaker 1: least to walk your machine in an easy manner, and
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  Speaker 1: whack you are rubbing your shin. So out of innocence
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  Speaker 1: we ripen Two bruises on that place mark a certain
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  Speaker 1: want of aptitude in learning, such as one might expect
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  Speaker 1: in a person unused to muscular exercise. Blisters on the
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  Speaker 1: hands are eloquent of the nervous clutch of the wavering rider,
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  Speaker 1: and so forth until Sherlock is presently explaining, by the
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  Speaker 1: help of the minor injuries, that the machine ridden is
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  Speaker 1: an old fashioned affair, with a fork instead of a
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  Speaker 1: diamond frame, a cushioned tire well worn on the hind wheel,
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  Speaker 1: and a gross weight on all of perhaps three and
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  Speaker 1: forty pounds. The revelation is made. Behind the decorous figure
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  Speaker 1: of the attentive shopman that I had in honor of
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  Speaker 1: showing you at first, rises a vision of a nightly
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  Speaker 1: struggle of two dark figures and a machine in a
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  Speaker 1: dark road, the road to be explicit from Roehampton to
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  Speaker 1: Putney Hill. And with this vision is the sound of
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  Speaker 1: a heel spurning the gravel, a gasping, a grunting, a
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  Speaker 1: shouting of steer man steer, a wavering, unsteady flight, a
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  Speaker 1: spasmodic turning of the missile edifice of man and machine,
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  Speaker 1: and a collapse. Then you descry dimly through the dusk,
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  Speaker 1: the central figure of this story sitting by the roadside
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  Speaker 1: and rubbing his leg at some new and his friend
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  Speaker 1: sympathetic but by no means depressed, preparing the displacement of
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  Speaker 1: the handlebear. Thus, even in a shop assistant, does the
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  Speaker 1: warmth of manhood assert itself and drive him against all
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  Speaker 1: the conditions of his calling, against the counsels of prudence
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  Speaker 1: and the restrictions of his means, to seek the wholesome
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  Speaker 1: delight of exertion and danger and pain. And our first
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  Speaker 1: examination of the draper reveals beneath his draperies the man
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  Speaker 1: to which initial fact, among others, we shall come again
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  Speaker 1: in the end chapter two. But enough of these revelations.
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  Speaker 1: The central fear of our story is now going along
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  Speaker 1: behind the counter a draper, indeed, with your purchases in
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  Speaker 1: his arms, to the warehouse, where the various articles you
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  Speaker 1: have selected will presently be packed by the senior porter
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  Speaker 1: and sent to you. Returning thence to his particular place,
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  Speaker 1: he seeses a folded piece of gingham, and, gripping the
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  Speaker 1: corners of the folds in his hands, begins to straighten
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  Speaker 1: them punctiliously. Near him is an apprentice apprenticed to the
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  Speaker 1: same high calling of draper's assistant, a ruddy red haired
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  Speaker 1: lad in a very short tailless black coat and a
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  Speaker 1: very high collar, who is deliberately unfolding and refolding some
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  Speaker 1: patterns of Cretonne. By twenty one, he too may be
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  Speaker 1: a full blown assistant, even as mister hoopdriver prints depend
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  Speaker 1: from the brass rails above them. Behind are fixtures full
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  Speaker 1: of white packages of Lino, H. D. B Que and maul.
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  Speaker 1: You might imagine to see them that the two were
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  Speaker 1: both intent upon nothing, the smoothness of textile and rectitude
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  Speaker 1: of fold. But to tell the truth, neither is thinking
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  Speaker 1: of the mechanical duties in hand. The assistant is dreaming
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  Speaker 1: of the delicious time only four hours off now, when
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  Speaker 1: he will resume the tail of his bruises and abrasions.
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  Speaker 1: The apprentice is nearer the lawnung long thoughts of boyhood,
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  Speaker 1: and his imagination rides cap a pie through the chambers
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  Speaker 1: of his brain, seeking some nightly quest in honor of
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  Speaker 1: that fair lady, the last but one of the girl
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  Speaker 1: apprentices to the dressmaking upstairs. He inclines rather to street
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  Speaker 1: fighting against revolutionaries, because then she could see him from
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  Speaker 1: the window. Jerking them back to the present, comes the
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  Speaker 1: puffy little shopwalker with a paper in his hand. The
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  Speaker 1: apprentice becomes extremely active. The shopwalker eyes the goods and
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  Speaker 1: hands hoopdriver. He says, how's that line of g s
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  Speaker 1: e z X Gingham's hoopdriver returns from imaginary triumph over
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  Speaker 1: the uncertainties of dismounting they're going fairly well, sir, But
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  Speaker 1: the larger cheek checks seem hanging. The shopwalker brings up
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  Speaker 1: parallel to the counter. Any particular time when you want
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  Speaker 1: your holidays, he asks. Hoopdriver pulls at his skimpy mustache. No,
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  Speaker 1: don't want them too late, sir, of course, how about
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  Speaker 1: this day week? Hoopdriver becomes rigidly meditative, gripping the corners
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  Speaker 1: of his gingham folds in his hands. His face is
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  Speaker 1: eloquent of conflicting considerations. Can he learn it in a week,
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  Speaker 1: that's the question. Otherwise Briggs will get next week and
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  Speaker 1: he will have to wait until September, when the weather
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  Speaker 1: is often uncertain. He is naturally of a sanguine disposition.
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  Speaker 1: All drapers have to be, or else they could never
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  Speaker 1: have the faith they show in the beauty, washability, and
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  Speaker 1: unfading excellence of the goods they sell you. The decision
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  Speaker 1: comes at last. That'll do me very well, says mister Hoopdriver,
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  Speaker 1: terminating the pause. The die is cast, The shop walker
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  Speaker 1: makes a note, and it goes on to Briggs in
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  Speaker 1: the dresses. The next in the strict scale of precedence
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  Speaker 1: of the drapery emporium, mister Hoopdriver, in alternating spasms, Anon
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  Speaker 1: straightens his gingham and Anon becomes meditative with his tongue
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  Speaker 1: in the hollow of his decaying Wisdom Tooth chapter three.
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  Speaker 1: At supper that night, holiday talk held undisputed sway, mister
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  Speaker 1: Pritchard spoke of Scotland. Miss Isaac's clamored about the Betsy
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  Speaker 1: y co ed. Mister Judson displayed a proprietary interest in
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  Speaker 1: the Norfolk Broads, I said Hoopdriver, when the question came
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  Speaker 1: to him, why cycling. Of course, you're never going to
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  Speaker 1: ride that dreadful machine of yours day after day, said
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  Speaker 1: Miss Howe of the costume department. I am, said Hoopdriver,
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  Speaker 1: as calmly as possible, pulling at the insufficient mustache. I'm
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  Speaker 1: going for a cycling tour along the south coast. Well
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  Speaker 1: all I hope, mister Hoopdriver, is that you'll get fine weather,
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  Speaker 1: said Miss Howe. And not come any nasty croppers. And
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  Speaker 1: don't forget some tincture of arnica in your bag, said
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  Speaker 1: the junior prentice in the very high collar. He had
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  Speaker 1: witnessed one of the lessons at the top of Putney Hill.
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  Speaker 1: You stow it, said mister Hoopdriver, looking hard and threateningly
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  Speaker 1: at the junior apprentice, and suddenly adding in a tone
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  Speaker 1: of bitter contempt, jam pot, I'm getting fairly safe upon
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  Speaker 1: it now, he told Miss Howe. At other times Hoopdriver
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  Speaker 1: might have further resented the satirical efforts of the apprentice,
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  Speaker 1: but his mind was too full of the projected tour
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  Speaker 1: to admit any petty delicacies of dignity. He left the
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  Speaker 1: supper table earli so that he might put in a
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  Speaker 1: good hour at the desperate gymnastics upon Roehampton Road before
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  Speaker 1: it be the time to come back for the locking up.
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  Speaker 1: When the gas was turned off for the night, he
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  Speaker 1: was sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing arnica
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  Speaker 1: into his knee, a new and a very big place,
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  Speaker 1: and studying a road map of the south of England. Briggs,
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  Speaker 1: of the dresses, who shared the room with them, was
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  Speaker 1: sitting up in bed and trying to smoke in the dark.
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  Speaker 1: Briggs had never been on a cycle in his life,
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  Speaker 1: but he felt Hoopdriver's inexperience and offered such advice as
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  Speaker 1: occurred to him. If the machine thoroughly well oiled, said Briggs,
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  Speaker 1: carry one or two lemons with you, don't tear yourself
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  Speaker 1: to death the first day, and sit upright, never lose
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  Speaker 1: control of the machine, and always sound the bell on
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  Speaker 1: every possible opportunity. You mind those things, and nothing very
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  Speaker 1: much can't happen to you, hoopdriver. You take my word,
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  Speaker 1: He would laugh and lapse into silence for a minute,
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  Speaker 1: save perhaps for a curse or so at his pipe,
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  Speaker 1: and then break out with an entirely different set of tips.
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  Speaker 1: Avoid running over dogs, hoopdriver, whatever you do, it's one
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  Speaker 1: of the worst things you can do to run over
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  Speaker 1: a dog. Never let the machine buckle. There is a
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  Speaker 1: man killed only the other day through his wheel buckling.
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  Speaker 1: Don't scorch, don't ride on the footpath, keep your own
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  Speaker 1: side of the road. And if you see a tram line,
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  Speaker 1: go round the corner at once and hurry off into
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  Speaker 1: the next county. And always light up before the dark.
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  Speaker 1: You mind just a few little things like that, hoopdriver,
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  Speaker 1: and nothing much can't happen to you. You take my word,
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  Speaker 1: right you are, said hoopdriver. Good night, old man, good night,
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  Speaker 1: said Briggs, and there was silence for a space save
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  Speaker 1: some of the succulent respiration of the pipe. Hoopdriver rode
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  Speaker 1: off into dreamland on his machine, and was scarcely there
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  Speaker 1: before he was pitched back into the world of sense again.
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  Speaker 1: Something what was it? Never oil? The steering. It's fatal.
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  Speaker 1: A voice that came from round a fitful glow of light,
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  Speaker 1: was saying, and clean the chain daily with black lead.
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  Speaker 1: You mind just a few little things like that, Lord
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  Speaker 1: save us, said Hoopdriver, and pulled the bedcloths over his ears.
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  Speaker 1: End of Part one.