differing essentially from her rich colouring; and, besides, he felt he

had made a hopeless fool of himself. But the afternoon was against him,

intolerably hot, especially on the top of his head, and the virtue had

gone out of his legs to digest his cold meat, and altogether his ride to

Guildford was exceedingly intermittent. At times he would walk, at times

lounge by the wayside, and every public house, in spite of Briggs and a

sentiment of economy, meant a lemonade and a dash of bitter. (For that

is the experience of all those who go on wheels, that drinking begets

thirst, even more than thirst begets drinking, until at last the man who

yields becomes a hell unto himself, a hell in which the fire dieth

not, and the thirst is not quenched.) Until a pennyworth of acrid green

apples turned the current that threatened to carry him away. Ever and

again a cycle, or a party of cyclists, would go by, with glittering

wheels and softly running chains, and on each occasion, to save his

self-respect, Mr. Hoopdriver descended and feigned some trouble with his

saddle. Each time he descended with less trepidation.

He did not reach Guildford until nearly four o'clock, and then he was

so much exhausted that he decided to put up there for the night, at

the Yellow Hammer Coffee Tavern. And after he had cooled a space and

refreshed himself with tea and bread and butter and jam,--the tea he

drank noisily out of the saucer,--he went out to loiter away the rest of

the afternoon. Guildford is an altogether charming old town, famous,

so he learnt from a Guide Book, as the scene of Master Tupper's great

historical novel of Stephen Langton, and it has a delightful castle, all

set about with geraniums and brass plates commemorating the gentlemen

The Wheels of Chance