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your curiosity is satisfied?"
"
Certainly," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
Then we won't detain you."
"
And, ignominiously, Mr. Hoopdriver turned his machine about, struggled
upon it, and resumed the road southward. And when he learnt that he was
not on the Portsmouth road, it was impossible to turn and go back, for
that would be to face his shame again, and so he had to ride on by Brook
Street up the hill to Haslemere. And away to the right the Portsmouth
road mocked at him and made off to its fastnesses amid the sunlit green
and purple masses of Hindhead, where Mr. Grant Allen writes his Hill Top
Novels day by day.
The sun shone, and the wide blue hill views and pleasant valleys one saw
on either hand from the sandscarred roadway, even the sides of the road
itself set about with grey heather scrub and prickly masses of gorse,
and pine trees with their year's growth still bright green, against the
darkened needles of the previous years, were fresh and delightful to Mr.
Hoopdriver's eyes But the brightness of the day and the day-old sense of
freedom fought an uphill fight against his intolerable vexation at that
abominable encounter, and had still to win it when he reached Haslemere.
A great brown shadow, a monstrous hatred of the other man in brown,
possessed him. He had conceived the brilliant idea of abandoning
Portsmouth, or at least giving up the straight way to his
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