In truth, there is no telling it, for the years have still
to run. But if you see how a mere counter-jumper, a cad on
castors, and a fool to boot, may come to feel the little
insufficiencies of life, and if he has to any extent won your
sympathies, my end is attained. (If it is not attained, may
Heaven forgive us both!) Nor will we follow this adventurous
young lady of ours back to her home at Surbiton, to her new
struggle against Widgery and Mrs. Milton combined. For, as she
will presently hear, that devoted man has got his reward. For
her, also, your sympathies are invited.
The rest of this great holiday, too--five days there are left of
it--is beyond the limits of our design. You see fitfully a
slender figure in a dusty brown suit and heather mixture
stockings, and brown shoes not intended to be cycled in, flitting
Londonward through Hampshire and Berkshire and Surrey, going
economically--for excellent reasons. Day by day he goes on,
riding fitfully and for the most part through bye-roads, but
getting a few miles to the north-eastward every day. He is a
narrow-chested person, with a nose hot and tanned at the bridge
with unwonted exposure, and brown, red-knuckled fists. A musing
expression sits upon the face of this rider, you observe.
Sometimes he whistles noiselessly to himself, sometimes he speaks
aloud, "a juiced good try, anyhow!" you hear; and sometimes, and
that too often for my liking, he looks irritable and hopeless. "I
know," he says, "I know.
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