a bridge crosses a stream, that Mr. Hoopdriver came across the
other cyclist in brown. It is well to notice the fact here,
although the interview was of the slightest, because it happened
that subsequently Hoopdriver saw a great deal more of this other
man in brown. The other cyclist in brown had a machine of
dazzling newness, and a punctured pneumatic lay across his knees.
He was a man of thirty or more, with a whitish face, an aquiline
nose, a lank, flaxen moustache, and very fair hair, and he
scowled at the job before him. At the sight of him Mr. Hoopdriver
pulled himself together, and rode by with the air of one born to
the wheel. "A splendid morning," said Mr. Hoopdriver, "and a fine
surface."

"The morning and you and the surface be everlastingly damned!"
said the other man in brown as Hoopdriver receded. Hoopdriver
heard the mumble and did not distinguish the words, and he felt a
pleasing sense of having duly asserted the wide sympathy that
binds all cyclists together, of having behaved himself as becomes
one of the brotherhood of the wheel. The other man in brown
watched his receding aspect. "Greasy proletarian," said the other
man in brown, feeling a prophetic dislike. "Got a suit of brown,
the very picture of this. One would think his sole aim in life
had been to caricature me. It's Fortune's way with me. Look at
his insteps on the treadles! Why does Heaven make such men?"

And having lit a cigarette, the other man in brown returned to
the business in hand.

Mr. Hoopdriver worked up the hill towards Cobham to a point that
he felt sure was out of sight of the other man in brown, and then