The Wheels of Chance. H. G. Wells

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      “That ain’t the way to get off,” said the heathkeeper.

      Mr. Hoopdriver picked up the machine. The handle was twisted askew again He said something under his breath. He would have to unscrew the beastly thing.

      “That ain’t the way to get off,” repeated the heathkeeper, after a silence.

      ” I know that,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, testily, determined to overlook the new specimen on his shin at any cost. He unbuckled the wallet behind the saddle, to get out a screw hammer.

      “If you know it ain’t the way to get off — whaddyer do it for?” said the heathkeeper, in a tone of friendly controversy.

      Mr. Hoopdriver got out his screw hammer and went to the handle. He was annoyed. “That’s my business, I suppose,” he said, fumbling with the screw. The unusual exertion had made his hands shake frightfully.

      The heathkeeper became meditative, and twisted his stick in his hands behind his back. “You’ve broken yer ‘andle, ain’t yer?” he said presently. Just then the screw hammer slipped off the nut. Mr. Hoopdriver used a nasty, low word.

      “They’re trying things, them bicycles,” said the heathkeeper, charitably. “Very trying.” Mr. Hoopdriver gave the nut a vicious turn and suddenly stood up — he was holding the front wheel between his knees. “I wish,” said he, with a catch in his voice, “I wish you’d leave off staring at me.”

      Then with the air of one who has delivered an ultimatum, he began replacing the screw hammer in the wallet.

      The heathkeeper never moved. Possibly he raised his eyebrows, and certainly he stared harder than he did before. “You’re pretty unsociable,” he said slowly, as Mr. Hoopdriver seized the handles and stood ready to mount as soon as the cart had passed.

      The indignation gathered slowly but surely. “Why don’t you ride on a private road of your own if no one ain’t to speak to you?” asked the heathkeeper, perceiving more and more clearly the bearing of the matter. “Can’t no one make a passin’ remark to you, Touchy? Ain’t I good enough to speak to you? Been struck wooden all of a sudden?”

      Mr. Hoopdriver stared into the Immensity of the Future. He was rigid with emotion. It was like abusing the Lions in Trafalgar Square. But the heathkeeper felt his honour was at stake.

      “Don’t you make no remarks to ‘IM,” said the keeper as the carter came up broadside to them. “‘E’s a bloomin’ dook, ‘e is. ‘E don’t converse with no one under a earl. ‘E’s off to Windsor, ‘e is; that’s why ‘e’s stickin’ his be’ind out so haughty. Pride! Why, ‘e’s got so much of it, ‘e has to carry some of it in that there bundle there, for fear ‘e’d bust if ‘e didn’t ease hisself a bit- -‘E — ”

      But Mr. Hoopdriver heard no more. He was hopping vigorously along the road, in a spasmodic attempt to remount.He missed the treadle once and swore viciously, to the keeper’s immense delight. “Nar! Nar!” said the heathkeeper.

      In another moment Mr. Hoopdriver was up, and after one terrific lurch of the machine, the heathkeeper dropped out of earshot. Mr. Hoopdriver would have liked to look back at his enemy, but he usually twisted round and upset if he tried that. He had to imagine the indignant heathkeeper telling the carter all about it. He tried to infuse as much disdain aspossible into his retreating aspect.

      He drove on his sinuous way down the dip by the new mere and up the little rise to the crest of the hill that drops into Kingston Vale; and so remarkable is the psychology of cycling, that he rode all the straighter and easier because the emotions the heathkeeper had aroused relieved his mind of the constant expectation of collapse that had previously unnerved him. To ride a bicycle properly is very like a love affair — chiefly it is a matter of faith. Believe you do it, and the thing is done; doubt, and, for the life of you, you cannot.

      Now you may perhaps imagine that as he rode on, his feelings towards the heathkeeper were either vindictive or remorseful, — vindictive for the aggravation or remorseful for his own injudicious display of ill temper. As a matter of fact, they were nothing of the sort. A sudden, a wonderful gratitude, possessed him. The Glory of the Holidays had resumed its sway with a sudden accession of splendour. At the crest of the hill he put his feet upon the footrests, and now riding moderately straight, went, with a palpitating brake, down that excellent descent. A new delight was in his eyes, quite over and above the pleasure of rushing through the keen, sweet, morning air. He reached out his thumb and twanged his bell out of sheer happiness.

      “‘He’s a bloomin’ Dook — he is!’” said Mr. Hoopdriver to himself, in a soft undertone, as he went soaring down the hill, and again, “‘He’s a bloomin’ Dook!”’ He opened his mouth in a silent laugh. It was having a decent cut did it. His social superiority had been so evident that even a man like that noticed it. No more Manchester Department for ten days! Out of Manchester, a Man. The draper Hoopdriver, the Hand, had vanished from existence. Instead was a gentleman, a man of pleasure, with a five-pound note, two sovereigns, and some silver at various convenient points of his person. At any rate as good as a Dook, if not precisely in the peerage. Involuntarily at the thought of his funds Hoopdriver’s right hand left the handle and sought his breast pocket, to be immediately recalled by a violent swoop of the machine towards the cemetery. Whirroo! Just missed that half-brick! Mischievous brutes there were in the world to put such a thing in the road. Some blooming ‘Arry or other! Ought to prosecute a few of these roughs, and the rest would know better. That must be the buckle of the wallet was rattling on the mudguard. 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.

      Whoop for Freedom and Adventure! Every now and then a house with an expression of sleepy surprise would open its eye as he passed, and to the right of him for a mile or so the weltering Thames flashed and glittered. Talk of your joie de vivre. Albeit with a certain cramping sensation about the knees and calves slowly forcing itself upon his attention.

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