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XI. OMISSIONS
Now the rest of the acts of Mr. Hoopdriver in Guildford, on the great
opening day of his holidays, are not to be detailed here. How he
wandered about the old town in the dusk, and up to the Hogsback to see
the little lamps below and the little stars above come out one after
another; how he returned through the yellow-lit streets to the Yellow
Hammer Coffee Tavern and supped bravely in the commercial room--a Man
among Men; how he joined in the talk about flying-machines and the
possibilities of electricity, witnessing that flying-machines were "dead
certain to come," and that electricity was "wonderful, wonderful"; how
he went and watched the billiard playing and said, "Left 'em" several
times with an oracular air; how he fell a-yawning; and how he got
out his cycling map and studied it intently,--are things that find no
mention here. Nor will I enlarge upon his going into the writing-room,
and marking the road from London to Guildford with a fine, bright line
of the reddest of red ink. In his little cyclist hand-book there is a
diary, and in the diary there is an entry of these things--it is there
to this day, and I cannot do better than reproduce it here to witness
that this book is indeed a true one, and no lying fable written to while
away an hour.
At last he fell a-yawning so much that very reluctantly indeed he set
about finishing this great and splendid day. (Alas! that all days
must end at last! ) He got his candle in the hall from a friendly
waiting-maid, and passed upward--whither a modest novelist, who writes
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