They did not look round, and he kept them just within sight,
getting down if he chanced to draw closely upon them round a
corner. By riding vigorously he kept quite conveniently near
them, for they made but little hurry. He grew hot indeed, and his
knees were a little stiff to begin with, but that was all. There
was little danger of losing them, for a thin chalky dust lay upon
the road, and the track of her tire was milled like a shilling,
and his was a chequered ribbon along the way. So they rode by
Cobden's monument and through the prettiest of villages, until at
last the downs rose steeply ahead. There they stopped awhile at
the only inn in the place, and Mr. Hoopdriver took up a position
which commanded the inn door, and mopped his face and thirsted
and smoked a Red Herring cigarette. They remained in the inn for
some time. A number of chubby innocents returning home from
school, stopped and formed a line in front of him, and watched
him quietly but firmly for the space of ten minutes or so. "Go
away," said he, and they only seemed quietly interested. He asked
them all their names then, and they answered indistinct murmurs.
He gave it up at last and became passive on his gate, and so at
length they tired of him.

The couple under observation occupied the inn so long that Mr.
Hoopdriver at the thought of their possible employment hungered
as well as thirsted. Clearly, they were lunching. It was a
cloudless day, and the sun at the meridian beat down upon the top
of Mr. Hoopdriver's head, a shower bath of sunshine, a huge jet
of hot light. It made his head swim. At last they emerged, and
the other man in brown looked back and saw him. They rode on to
the foot of the down, and dismounting began to push tediously up