apologised for stopping him. And her form, as she leant towards him, was

full of a sinuous grace he had never noticed before. "What can I have

the pleasure?" said Mr. Hoopdriver at once, and she said, "The Ripley

road." So he got out the Ripley road and unrolled it and showed it to

her, and she said that would do very nicely, and kept on looking at him

and smiling, and he began measuring off eight miles by means of the yard

measure on the counter, eight miles being a dress length, a rational

dress length, that is; and then the other man in brown came up and

wanted to interfere, and said Mr. Hoopdriver was a cad, besides

measuring it off too slowly. And as Mr. Hoopdriver began to measure

faster, the other man in brown said the Young Lady in Grey had been

there long enough, and that he WAS her brother, or else she would not be

travelling with him, and he suddenly whipped his arm about her waist and

made off with her. It occurred to Mr. Hoopdriver even at the moment that

this was scarcely brotherly behaviour. Of course it wasn't! The sight

of the other man gripping her so familiarly enraged him frightfully; he

leapt over the counter forthwith and gave chase. They ran round the shop

and up an iron staircase into the Keep, and so out upon the Ripley road.

For some time they kept dodging in and out of a wayside hotel with

two front doors and an inn yard. The other man could not run very fast

because he had hold of the Young Lady in Grey, but Mr. Hoopdriver was

hampered by the absurd behaviour of his legs. They would not stretch

out; they would keep going round and round as if they were on the

treadles of a wheel, so that he made the smallest steps conceivable.

This dream came to no crisis. The chase seemed to last an interminable

time, and all kinds of people, heathkeepers, shopmen, policemen, the old

The Wheels of Chance