moments. There will be no more rising before breakfast in casual
old clothing, to go dusting and getting ready in a cheerless,
shutterdarkened, 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. Thereafter, every night, comes a pang, a spectre, that
will not be exorcised--the premonition of the return. The shadow
of going back, of being put in the cage again for another twelve
months, lies 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. Halfway up, a
dissipated-looking black cat rushed home across flile 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 30/--and his legs--those martyr legs--were more than