It's over and done. It isn't IN me. You
ain't man enough, Hoopdriver. Look at yer silly hands! . . . Oh,
my God!" and a gust of passion comes upon him and he rides
furiously for a space.
Sometimes again his face softens. "Anyhow, if I'm not to see her-
-she's going to lend me books," he thinks, and gets such comfort
as he can. Then again; "Books! What's books?" Once or twice
triumphant memories of the earlier incidents nerve his face for a
while. "I put the ky-bosh on HIS little game," he remarks. "I DID
that," and one might even call him happy in these phases. And,
by-the-bye, the machine, you notice, has been enamel-painted grey
and carries a sonorous gong.
This figure passes through Basingstoke and Bagshot, Staines,
Hampton, and Richmond. At last, in Putney High Street, glowing
with the warmth of an August sunset and with all the 'prentice
boys busy shutting up shop, and the work girls going home, and
the shop folks peeping abroad, and the white 'buses full of late
clerks and city folk rumbling home to their dinners, we part from
him. He is back. To-morrow, the early rising, the dusting, and
drudgery, begin again--but with a difference, with wonderful
memories and still more wonderful desires and ambitions replacing
those discrepant dreams.
He turns out of the High Street at the corner, dismounts with a
sigh, and pushes his machine through the gates of the Antrobus
stable yard, as the apprentice with the high collar holds them
open. There are words of greeting.
Pages:
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216