Page:The wheels of chance -- a bicycling idyll.djvu/214

200 "Oh, no," said Hoopdriver, anxious now to hedge. "I don't make a regular thing of it, you know. Jest now and then something comes into my head and down it goes. No—I'm not a regular artist."

"Then you don't practise any regular profession?"

Mr. Hoopdriver looked into her eyes and saw their quiet unsuspicious regard. He had vague ideas of resuming the detective rôle. "It's like this," he said, to gain time. "I have a sort of profession. Only there's a kind of reason—nothing much, you know—"

"I beg your pardon for cross-examining you."

"No trouble," said Mr. Hoopdriver. "Only I can't very well—I leave it to you, you know. I don't want to make any mystery of it, so far as that goes." Should he plunge boldly and be a barrister? That anyhow was something pretty good. But she might know about barristry.

"I think I could guess what you are."

"Well—guess," said Mr. Hoopdriver.

"You come from one of the colonies?"

"Dear me!" said Mr. Hoopdriver, veering round to the new wind. "How did you find out that?" (the man was born in a London suburb, dear Reader.)

"I guessed," she said.

He lifted his eyebrows as one astonished, and clutched a new piece of grass.