The wheels of chance, a holiday adventure

Front matter

HE' WHEELS OF CHANCE

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

Contents

PAGE

THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTER IN THE STORY . 3

THE RIDING FORTH OF MR. HOOPDRIVER . . 20

II

'' Thus even in a shop assistant does the warmth of manhood assert itself, and drive him against all the conditions of his calling, against the counsels of prudence and the restrictions of his means, to seek the wholesome delights of exertion and danger and pain. And our first, examination <jf^e draper reveals beneath his draperies — the man ! To which initial fact (among others) we shall come again in the end.

II

But enough of these revelations. The central figure of our story is now going along behind the counter, a draper indeed, with your purchases in his arms, to the warehouse, where the various articles you have selected will presently be packed by the senior porter and sent to you. Returning thence to his particular place, he seizes a folded piece of gingham, and, gripping the corners of the folds in his hands, begins to straighten them punctiliously. Near him is an apprentice, apprenticed to the same high calling of draper's assistant, a ruddy, red-haired lad in a very short, tailless black coat and a very high collar, who is deliberately unfolding and refolding some patterns of cretonne. By twenty-one he, too, may hope to be a full-blown assistant, even as Mr. Hoopdriver. Prints depend from the brass rails above them, behind are fixtures full of white packages of Lino, Hd Bk, and Mull. You might imagine to see them that the two were both intent upon nothing but smoothness of textile and rectitude of fold. But to tell the truth, neither is thinking of the mechanical duties in hand. The assistant is dreaming of the delicious time — only four hours off now — when he will resume the tale of his bruises and abrasions. The apprentice is nearer the long, long thoughts of boyhood, and his imagination rides cap-a-pie through the chambers of his brain, seeking some knightly quest in honour of that Fair Lady, the last but one of the girl apprentices to the dressmaking upstairs. He inclines rather to street fighting against revolutionaries— because then she could see him from the window.

Jerking them back to the present comes the puffy little shop-walker, with a paper in his hand. The apprentice becomes extremely active. The shop-walker eyes the goods in hand. "Hoopdriver," he says, "how's that line of g-sez-x ginghams ? "

Hoopdriver returns from an imaginary triumph over the uncertainties of dismounting. " They're going fairly well, sir. But the larger checks seem hanging."

The shop -walker brings up parallel to the counter. "Any particular time when you want your holidays ? " he asks.

Hoopdriver pulls at his skimpy moustache. " No — Don't want them too late, sir, of course."

" How about this day week ? "

Hoopdriver becomes rigidly meditative, gripping the corners of the gingham folds in his hands. His face is eloquent of conflicting considerations. Can he learn it in a week ? That's the question. Otherwise Briggs will get next week, and he will have to wait until September — when the weather is often uncertain. He is naturally of a sanguine disposition. All drapers have to be, or else they could never have the faith they show in the beauty, washability, and unfading excellence of the goods they sell you. The decision comes at last. " That'll do me very well," says Mr. Hoopdriver, terminating the pause. The die is cast. ' The shop-walker makes a note of it and goes on to Briggs in the " dresses," the next in the strict scale of precedence of the Drapery Emporium. Mr. Hoopdriver in alternating spasms anon straightens his gingham and anon becomes meditative, with his tongue in the hollow of his decaying wisdom tooth.

Ill

At supper that night, holiday talk held undisputed sway. Mr. Pritchard spoke of " Scotland," Miss Isaacs clamoured of Bettws-y-Coed, Mr. Judson displayed a proprietary interest in the Norfolk Broads. " T?" said Hoopdriver, when the question came to him. " Why, cycling, of course."

"You're never going to ride that dreadful machine of yours, day after day ? " said Miss Howe of the Costume Department.

" I am," said Hoopdriver, as calmly as possible,

^-.^Uing at the insufficient moustache. " I'm going

( for a Cycling Tour. Along the South Coast."

— '"Well, all I hope, Mr. Hoopdriver, is that you'll

get fine weather," said Miss Howe. " And not

come any nasty croppers."

"And done forget some tinscher of arnica in yer bag," said the junior apprentice in the very high collar. (He had witnessed one of the lessons at the top of Putney Hill.)

"You stow it," said Mr. Hoopdriver, looking hard and threateningly at the junior apprentice, and suddenly adding in a tone of bitter contempt, "Jampot."

" I'm getting fairly safe upon it now," he told Miss Howe.

At other times Hoopdriver might have further resented the satirical efforts of the apprentice, but his mind was too full of the projected Tour to admit any petty delicacies of dignity. He left the supper-table early, so that he might put in a good hour at the desperate gymnastics up the Roehampton Road before it would be time to come back for locking up. When the gas was turned off for the night, he was sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing arnica into his knee — a new and very big place — and studying a Road Map of the South of England. Briggs of the "dresses," who shared the room with him, was sitting up in bed and trying to smoke in the dark. Briggs had never been on a cycle in his life, but he felt Hoopdriver's inexperience, and offered such advice as occurred to him.

" Have the machine thoroughly well oiled," said Briggs; "carry one or two lemons with you; don't tear yourself to death the first day, and sit upright. Never lose control of the machine, and always sound the bell on every possible opportunity. You mind those things, and nothing very much can't happen to you, Hoopdriver — you take my word."

He would lapse into silence for a minute, save perhaps for a curse or so at his pipe, and then break out with an entirely different set of tips.

"Avoid running over dogs, Hoopdriver, whatever you do. It's one of the worst things you can do to run over a dog. Never let the machine buckle — there was a man killed only the other day through his wheel buckUng ; don't scorch, don't ride on the foot-path, keep your own side of the road, and if you see a tram-line, go round the corner at once, and hurry off into the next county — and always light up before dark. You mind just a few little things like that, Hoopdriver, and nothing much can't happen to you — you take my word."

"Right you are!" said Hoopdriver. "Good night, old man."

"Good night," said Briggs, and there was silence for a space, save for the succulent respiration of the pipe. Hoopdriver rode off into Dreamland on his machine, and was scarcely there before he was pitched back into the world of sense again. Something — what was it ?

"Never oil the steering. It's fatal," a voice that came from round a fitful glow of light was saying. "And clean the chain daily with blacklead. You mind just a few little things like that "

" Lord love us ! " said Hoopdriver, and pulled the bedclothes over his ears.

THE RIDING FORTH OF MR.

HOOPDRIVER

IV

n3NLY those who toil six long days out of the seven, and all the year round, save for one brief glorious fortnight or ten days in the summer tirpe, know the exquisite sensations of the First

/fioliday Morning. All the dreary, uninteresting routine drops from you suddenly, your chains fall about your feet. All at once you are Lord of yourself. Lord of every hour in the long, vacant day ; you may go where you please, call none Sir or Madam, have a lappel free of pins, doff your black morning coat and wear the colour of your heart, and be a Man. .W'ou grudge sleep, you grudge eating and drinking even, their

.''intrusion on those exquisite moments. There will be no more rising before breakfast in casual old clothing, to go dusting and getting ready in a

''cheerless, shutter-darkened, wrappered-up shop ; no more imperious cries of, "Forward, Hoopdriver," no more hasty meals, and weary attendance on fitful old women, for ten blessed days. The first morning is by far the most glorious, for you hold your whole fortune in your hands. There-

,, after, every night, comes a pang, a spectre, that

I will not be exorcised — the premonition of the

/ return. The shadow of going back, of being put

i in the cage again for another twelve months, lies

V, blacker and blacker across the sunlight. But on

the first morning of the ten the holiday has no

past, and ten days seems as good as infinity.

And it was fine, full of a promise of glorious days, a deep blue sky, with dazzling piles of white cloud here and there, as though celestial haymakers had been piling the swathes of last night's clouds into cocks for a coming cartage. There were thrushes in the Richmond Road, and a lark on Putney Heath. The freshness of dew was in the air ; dew or the relics of an overnight shower glittered on the leaves and grass. Hoopdriver had breakfasted early by Mrs. Gunn's complaisance. He wheeled his machine up Putney Hill, and his heart sang within him. Half-way up, a dissipated-looking black cat rushed home across the road and vanished under a gate. All the big red-brick houses behind the variegated shrubs and trees had their blinds down still, and he would not have changed places with a soul in any one of them for a hundred pounds.

He had on his new brown cycling suit — a handsome Norfolk jacket thing for 30s. — and his legs — those martyr legs — were more than consoled by thick chequered stockings, "thin in the foot, thick in the leg," for all they had endured. A neat packet of American cloth behind the saddle contained his change of raiment, and the bell, and the handle-bar, and the hubs and lamp, albeit a trifle freckled by wear, glittered blindingly in the rising sunlight. And at the top of the hill, after only one unsuccessful attempt, which, somehow, terminated on the green, Hoopdriver mounted, and, with a stately and cautious restraint in his pace, and a dignified curvature of path, began his great Cycling Tour along the Southern Coast.

There is only one phrase to describe his course at this stage, and that is — voluptuous curves. He did not ride fast, he did not ride straight, an exacting critic might say he did not ride well — but he rode generously, opulently, using the whole road and even nibbling at the footpath. The excitement never flagged. So far he had never passed or been passed by anything, but as yet the day was young and the road was clear. He doubted his steering so much that, for the present, he had resolved to dismount at the approach of anything else upon wheels. The shadows of the trees lay very long and blue across the road ; the morning sunlight was like amber fire. At the cross-roads at the top of West Hill, where the cattle trough stands, he turned towards Kingston and set himself to scale the little bit of ascent. An early heath-keeper, in his velveteen jacket, marvelled at his efforts; and while he yet struggled the head of a carter rose over the brow.

At the sight of him Mr. Hoopdriver, according to his previous determination, resolved to dismount. He tightened the brake, and the machine stopped dead. He was trying to think what he did with his right leg whilst getting off. He gripped the handles and released the brake, standing on the left pedal and waving his right foot in the air. Then — these things take so long in the telling — he found the machine was falling over to the right. While he was deciding upon a plan of action, gravitation appears to have been busy. He was still irresolute when he found the machine on the ground, himself kneeling upon it, and a vague feeling in his mind that again Providence had dealt harshly with his shin. This happened when he was just level with the heath-keeper. The man in the approaching cart stood up to see the ruins better.

" TMi ain't the way to get off," said the heath-keeper.

Mr. Hoopdriver picked up the machine. The handle was twisted askew again. He said something under his breath. He would have to unscrew the beastly thing.

" Tkat ain't the way to get off," repeated the heath-keeper, after a silence.

"/ know that," said Mr. Hoopdriver testily, determined to overlook the new specimen on his shin at any cost. He unbuckled the wallet behind the saddle, to get out a screw-hammer.

" If you know it ain't the way to get off — whaddyer do it for ? " said the heath-keeper, in a tone of friendly controversy.

Mr. Hoopdriver got out his screw-hammer and went to the handle. He was annoyed. " That's my business, I suppose," he said, fumbhng with the screw. The unusual exertion had made his hands shake frightfully.

The heath -keeper became meditative, and twisted his stick in his hands behind his back. " You've broken yer 'andle, ain't yer ? " he said presently. Just then the screw-hammer slipped off the nut. Mr. Hoopdriver used a nasty, low word.

"They're trying things, them bicycles," said the heath-keeper charitably. " Very trying." Mr. Hoopdriver gave the nut a vicious turn, and suddenly stood up — he was holding the front wheel between his knees. "I wish," said he, with a catch in his voice, " I wish you'd leave off staring at me." Then with the air of one who has delivered an ultimatum, he began replacing the screw-hammer in the wallet.

The heath-keeper never moved. Possibly he raised his eyebrows, and certainly he stared harder than he did before. " You're pretty unsociable," he said slowly, as Mr. Hoopdriver seized the handles and stood ready to mount as soon as the cart had passed.

The indignation gathered slowly but surely. " Why don't you ride on a private road of your own if no one ain't to speak to you ? " asked the heath-keeper, perceiving more and more clearly the bearing of the matter. " Can't no one make a passin' remark to you. Touchy ? Ain't I good enough to speak to you ? Been struck wooden all of a sudden ? "

Mr. Hoopdriver stared into the Immensity of the Future. He was rigid with emotion. It was like abusing the Lions in Trafalgar Square. But the heath-keeper felt his honour was at stake.

" Don't you make no remarks to 'im" said the keeper as the carter came up broadside to them. "'E's a bloomin' dook, 'e is. 'E don't converse with no one under a earl. 'E's off to Windsor, 'e is ; that's why 'e's stickin' his be'ind out so haughty. Pride ! Why, 'e's got so much of it, 'e has to carry some of it in that there, bundle there, for fear 'e'd bust if 'e didn't ease hisself a bit — 'E "

But Mr. Hoopdriver heard no more. He was hopping vigorously along the road, in a spasmodic attempt to remount. He missed the treadle once, and swore viciously, to the keeper's immense delight. " Nar ! Nar ! " said the heath-keeper.

In another moment Mr. Hoopdriver was up, and after one terrific lurch of the machine, the heath-keeper dropped out of earshot.

Mr. Hoopdriver would have liked to look back at his enemy, but he usually twisted round and upset if he tried that. He had to imagine the indignant heath-keeper telling the carter all about it. He tried to infuse as much disdain as possible into his retreating aspect.

He drove on his sinuous way down the dip by the new mere and up the little rise to the crest of the hill that drops into Kingston Vale ; and so remarkable is the psychology of cycling, that he rode all the straighter and easier because the emotions the heath-keeper had aroused relieved his mind of the constant expectation of collapse that had previously unnerved him. To ride a bicycle properly is very like a love affair ; chiefly it is a matter of faith. Believe you do it, and the thing is done ; doubt, and, for the life of you, you cannot.

Now you may perhaps imagine that as he rode on, his feelings towards the heath-keeper were either vindictive or remorseful — vindictive for the aggravation or remorseful for his own injudicious display of ill-temper. As a matter of fact, they were nothing of the sort. A sudden, a wonderful gratitude, possessed him. The Glory of the Holidays had resumed its sway with a sudden accession of splendour. At the crest of the hill he put his feet upon the foot-rests, and now riding moderately straight, went, with a palpitating brake, down that excellent descent. A new delight was in his eyes, quite over and above the pleasure of rushing through the keen, sweet, morning air. He reached out his thumb and twanged his bell out of sheer happiness. ^

"'He's a bloomin' dook — he is!'" said Mr. Hoopdriver to himself, in a soft undertone, as he went soaring down the hill, and again, " ' He's a bloomin' dook ! ' " He opened his mouth in a silent laugh. It was having a decent cut did ifc. .His social superiority had been so evident that | eVen a man like that noticed it. No more Man- / Chester DepartmenLfor ten days ! Out of Man/ Chester, a Man. //The draper Hoopdriver, the Hand, had vani9h^d-4rom existence\ Instead was a gentleman, a man of pleasure, with a five-pound note, two sovereigns, and some silver at various convenient points of his person. At any rate as good as a dook, if not precisely in the peerage. Involuntarily at the thought of his funds Hoopdriver's right hand left the handle and sought his breast pocket, to be immediately recalled by a violent swoop of the machine towards the cemetery. Whirroo ! Just missed that half-brick ! Mischievous brutes there were in the world to put such a thing in the road. Some blooming 'Arry or other ! Ought to prosecute a few of these roughs, and the rest would know better. That must be the buckle of the wallet was rattling on the mud-guard. How cheerfully the wheels buzzed !

The cemetery was very silent and peaceful, but the Vale was waking, and windows rattled and squeaked up, and a white dog came out of one of the houses and yelped at him. He got off, rather breathless, at the foot of Kingston Hill, and pushed up. Halfway up, an early milk chariot rattled by him ; two dirty men with bundles came hurrying down. Hoopdriver felt sure they were burglars, carrying home the swag.

It was up Kingston Hill that he first noticed a peculiar feeling, a slight tightness at his knees; but he noticed, too, at the top that he rode straighter than he did before. The pleasure of riding straight blotted out these first intimations of fatigue. A man on horseback appeared ; Hoopdriver, in a tumult of soul at his own

THE WHEELS OF CHANGE 31

temerity, passed him ; then down the hill into Kingston, with the screw-hammer, behind in the wallet, rattling against the oil-can. He passed, without misadventure, a fruiterer's van and a sluggish cartload of bricks. And in Kingston, Hoopdriver, with the most exquisite sensations, saw the shutters half removed from a draper's shop, and two yawning youths, in dusty old black jackets and with dirty white comforters about their necks, clearing up the planks and boxes and wrappers in the window, preparatory to dressing it out. Even so had Hoopdriver been on the previous day. But now, was he not a bloomin' dook, palpably in the sight of common men ? Then round the corner to the right — bell banged furiously — and so along the road to Surbiton.

Whoop for Freedom and Adventure ! Every now and then a house with an expression of sleepy surprise would open its eye as he passed, and to the right of him for a mile or so the weltering Thames flashed and glittered. Talk of your joie de vivre ! Albeit with a certain cramping sensation about the knees and calves slowly forcing itself upon his attention.

THE SHAMEFUL EPISODE OF THE YOUNG LADY IN GREY

V

/ Now you must understand that Mr. Hoopdriver I was not one of your fast young men. If he had Vbeen King Lemuel, he could not have profited more by his mother's instructions. He regarded the feminine sex as something to bow to and smirk at from a safe distance. Years of the intimate remoteness of a counter leave their mark upon a man. It was an adventure for him to take one of the Young Ladies of the establishment to church on a Sunday. Few modern young men could have merited less the epithet "Dorg." But I have thought at times that his machine may have had something of the blade in its metal. Decidedly it was a machine with a past. Mr. Hoopdriver had bought it second-hand from Hare's in Putney, and Hare said it had had several owners. Second-hand was scarcely the word for it, and Hare was mildly puzzled that he should be selling such an antiquity. He said it was perfectly sound, if a

little old-fashioned, but he was absolutely silent about its moral character. It may even have begun its career with a poet, say in his glorious youth. It may have been the bicycle of a Really Bad Man. No one who had ever ridden a cycle of any kind but will witness that the things are unaccountably prone to pick up bad habits — and keep them.

It is undeniable that it became convulsed with the most violent emotions directly the Young Lady in Grey appeared. It began an absolutely unprecedented Wabble — unprecedented so far as-^ Hoopdriver's experience went. It "showed off/ — the most decadent sinuosity. It left a track like one of Beardsley's feathers. He suddenly realised, too, that his cap was loose on his head and his breath a mere remnant.

The Young Lady in Grey was also riding a bicycle. She was dressed in a beautiful bluishgrey, and the sun behind her drew her outline in gold and left the rest in shadow. Hoopdriver was dimly aware that she was young, rather slender, dark, and with a bright colour and bright eyes. Strange doubts possessed him as to the nature of her nether costume. He had heard of such things of course — French perhaps. Her handles glittered ; a jet of sunlight splashed off her bell blindingly. She was approaching the high road along an affluent from the villas of Surbiton. The roads converged slantingly. She was travelling at about the same pace as Mr. Hoopdriver. Appearances pointed to a meeting at the fork of the roads.

Hoopdriver was seized with a horrible conflict of doubts. By contrast with her he rode disgracefully. Had he not better get off at once and pretend something was wrong with his treadle ? Yet even the end of getting off was an uncertainty. That last occasion on Putney Heath ! On the other hand, what would happen if he kept on ? To go very slow seemed the abnegation of his manhood. To crawl after a mere schoolgirl ! Besides, she was not riding very fast. On the other hand, to thrust himself in front of her, consuming the road in his tendrillike advance, seemed an incivility — greed. He would leave her such a very little. His business training made him prone to bow and step aside. If only one could take one's hands off the handles, one might pass with a silent elevation of the hat, of course. But even that was a little suggestive of a funeral.

Meanwhile the roads converged. She was looking at him. She was flushed, a little thin, and had very bright eyes. Her red lips fell apart. She may have been riding hard, but it looked uncommonly like a faint smile. And the things were — yes ! — rationals ! Suddenly an impulse to bolt from the situation became clamorous. Mr. Hoopdriver pedalled convulsively, intending to pass her. He jerked against some tin thing on the road, and it flew up between front wheel and mud-guard. He twisted round towards her. Had the machine a devil ?

At that supreme moment it came across him that he would have done wiser to dismount. He gave a frantic " whoop " and tried to get round ; then, as he seemed falHng over, he pulled the handles straight again and to the left by an instinctive motion, and shot behind her hind wheel, missing her by a hair's breadth. The pavement kerb awaited him. He tried to recover, and found himself jumped up on the pavement and riding squarely at a neat wooden • paling. He struck this with a terrific impact and shot forward off his saddle into a clumsy entanglement. Then he began to tumble over sideways, and completed the entire figure in a sitting position on the gravel, with his feet between the fork and the stay of the machine. The concussion on the gravel shook his entire being. He remained in that position, wishing that he had broken his neck, wishing even more heartily that he had never been born. TJie glory of life had departed. Bloomin' dook, indeed ! These unwomanly women !

There was a soft whirr, the click of a brake, two footfalls, and the Young Lady in Grey stood holding her machine. She had turned round and come back to him. The warm sunlight now was in her face. " Are you hurt ? " she said. She had a pretty, clear, girlish voice. She was really very young — quite a girl, in fact. And rode so well ! It was a bitter draught.

Mr. Hoopdriver stood up at once. "Not a bit," he said, a little ruefully. He became painfully aware that large patches of gravel scarcely improve the appearance of a Norfolk suit. " I'm very sorry indeed "

" It's my fault," she said, interrupting, and so saving him on the very verge of calling her " Miss." (He knew " Miss " was vsrrong, but it was deep-seated habit with him.) " I tried to pass you on the wrong side." Her face and eyes seemed all alive. "It's my place to be sorry."

" But it was my steering "

" 1 ought to have seen you were a novice " —

with a touch of superiority. " But you rode so

straight coming along there ! "

^ She really was — dashed pretty. Mr. Hoop-

/^ driver's feelings passed the nadir. When he

( spoke again there was the faintest flavour of the

^■--aristocratic in his voice.

" It's my first ride, as a matter of fact. But that's no excuse for my — ah ! blundering "

" Your finger's bleeding," she said abruptly.

He saw his knuckle was barked. " I didn't feel it," he said, feeling manly.

"You don't at first. Have you any sticking-plaster ? If not " She balanced her machine

against herself. She had a little side pocket, and she whipped out a small packet of sticking-plaster with a pair of scissors in a sheath at the side, and cut off a generous portion. He had a wild impulse to ask her to stick it on for him. Controlled. " Thank you," he said.

" Machine all right ? " she asked, looking past him at the prostrate vehicle, her hands on her handle-bar. For the first time Hoopdriver did not feel proud of his machine.

He turned and began to pick up the fallen fabric. He looked over his shoulder, and she was gone ; turned his head over the other shoulder down the road, and she was riding off. " Orf! " said Mr. Hoopdriver. " Well, I'm blowed ! Talk about Slap Up ! " (His aristocratic refinement rarely adorned his speech in his private soliloquies.) His mind was whirling. One fact was clear. A' most delightful and novel human being had flashed across his horizon and was going out of his life again. The Holiday madness was in his blood. She looked round !

At that he rushed his machine into the road, and began a hasty ascent. Unsuccessful. Try again. Confound it, will he never be able to get up on the thing again ? She will be round the corner in a minute. Once more. Ah ! Pedal ! Wabble ! No ! Right this time ! He gripped the handles and put his head down. He would overtake her.

The situation was primordial. The Man beneath prevailed for a moment over the civilised superstructure, the Draper. He pushed at the pedals with archaic violence. So Palaeolithic man may have ridden his simple bicycle of chipped flint in pursuit of his exogamous affinity. She vanished round the corner. His effort was Titanic. What should he say when he overtook her ? That scarcely disturbed him at first. How fine she had looked, flushed with the exertion of riding.