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
who put them up, and its Guildhall is a Tudor building, very
pleasant to see, and in the afternoon the shops are busy and the
people going to and fro make the pavements look bright and
prosperous.
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