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Wheels of Chance, a Bicycling Idyll by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
page 136 of 231 (58%)



THE UNEXPECTED ANECDOTE OF THE LION

XXIX

They rode on to Cosham and lunched lightly but expensively there.
Jessie went out and posted her letter to her school friend. Then
the green height of Portsdown Hill tempted them, and leaving
their machines in the village they clambered up the slope to the
silent red-brick fort that crowned it. Thence they had a view of
Portsmouth and its cluster of sister towns, the crowded narrows
of the harbour, the Solent and the Isle of Wight like a blue
cloud through the hot haze. Jessie by some miracle had become a
skirted woman in the Cosham inn. Mr. Hoopdriver lounged
gracefully on the turf, smoked a Red Herring cigarette, and
lazily regarded the fortified towns that spread like a map away
there, the inner line of defence like toy fortifications, a mile
off perhaps ; and beyond that a few little fields and then the
beginnings of Landport suburb and the smoky cluster of the
multitudinous houses. To the right at the head of the harbour
shallows the town of Porchester rose among the trees. Mr.
Hoopdriver's anxiety receded to some remote corner of his brain
and that florid half-voluntary imagination of his shared the
stage with the image of Jessie. He began to speculate on the
impression he was creating. He took stock of his suit in a more
optimistic spirit, and reviewed, with some complacency, his
actions for the last four and twenty hours. Then he was dashed at
the thought of her infinite perfections.
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