"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.
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