Except that I'm a kind of fool. Well--I wanted
somehow to seem more than I was. My name's Hoopdriver."
"Yes?"
"And that about South Africa--and that lion."
"Well?"
"Lies."
"Lies!"
And the discovery of diamonds on the ostrich farm. Lies too. And
all the reminiscences of the giraffes--lies too. I never rode on
no giraffes. I'd be afraid."
He looked at her with a kind of sullen satisfaction. He had eased
his conscience, anyhow. She regarded him in infinite perplexity.
This was a new side altogether to the man. "But WHY," she began.
"Why did I tell you such things? _I_ don't know. Silly sort of
chap, I expect. I suppose I wanted to impress you. But somehow,
now, I want you to know the truth."
Silence. Breakfast untouched. "I thought I'd tell you," said Mr.
Hoopdriver. "I suppose it's snobbishness and all that kind of
thing, as much as anything. I lay awake pretty near all last
night thinking about myself; thinking what a got-up imitation of
a man I was, and all that."
"And you haven't any diamond shares, and you are not going into
Parliament, and you're not--"
"All Lies," said Hoopdriver, in a sepulchral voice. "Lies from
beginning to end. 'Ow I came to tell 'em I DON'T know."
She stared at him blankly.
"I never set eyes on Africa in my life," said Mr. Hoopdriver,
completing the confession. Then he pulled his right hand from his
pocket, and with the nonchalance of one to whom the bitterness of
death is passed, began to drink his coffee.
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