Rushed in and off with his girl right under his nose. Planned it
well too. Talk of highway robbery! Talk of brigands Up and off!
How juiced SOLD he must be feeling It was a shave too--in the
coach yard!"

Suddenly he became silent. Abruptly his eyebrows rose and his jaw
fell. "I sa-a-ay!" said Mr. Hoopdriver.

He had never thought of it before. Perhaps you will understand
the whirl he had been in overnight. But one sees things clearer
in the daylight. "I'm hanged if I haven't been and stolen a
blessed bicycle."

"Who cares?" said Mr. Hoopdriver, presently, and his face
supplied the answer.

Then he thought of the Young Lady in Grey again, and tried to put
a more heroic complexion on the business. But of an early
morning, on an empty stomach (as with characteristic coarseness,
medical men put it) heroics are of a more difficult growth than
by moonlight. Everything had seemed exceptionally fine and
brilliant, but quite natural, the evening before.

Mr. Hoopdriver reached out his hand, took his Norfolk jacket,
laid it over his knees, and took out the money from the little
ticket pocket. " Fourteen and six-half," he said, holding the
coins in his left hand and stroking his chin with his right. He
verified, by patting, the presence of a pocketbook in the breast
pocket. "Five, fourteen, six-half," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "Left."