know better. That must be the buckle of the wallet was rattling on the

mud-guard. How cheerfully the wheels buzzed!

The cemetery was very silent and peaceful, but the Vale was waking, and

windows rattled and squeaked up, and a white dog came out of one of the

houses and yelped at him. He got off, rather breathless, at the foot of

Kingston Hill, and pushed up. Halfway up, an early milk chariot rattled

by him; two dirty men with bundles came hurrying down. Hoopdriver felt

sure they were burglars, carrying home the swag.

It was up Kingston Hill that he first noticed a peculiar feeling, a

slight tightness at his knees; but he noticed, too, at the top that

he rode straighter than he did before. The pleasure of riding straight

blotted out these first intimations of fatigue. A man on horseback

appeared; Hoopdriver, in a tumult of soul at his own temerity, passed

him. Then down the hill into Kingston, with the screw hammer, behind

in the wallet, rattling against the oil can. He passed, without

misadventure, a fruiterer's van and a sluggish cartload of bricks. And

in Kingston Hoopdriver, with the most exquisite sensations, saw the

shutters half removed from a draper's shop, and two yawning youths,

in dusty old black jackets and with dirty white comforters about their

necks, clearing up the planks and boxes and wrappers in the window,

preparatory to dressing it out. Even so had Hoopdriver been on the

previous day. But now, was he not a bloomin' Dook, palpably in the

sight of common men? Then round the corner to the right--bell banged

furiously--and so along the road to Surbiton.

The Wheels of Chance