Page:The wheels of chance -- a bicycling idyll.djvu/217

Rh being driven out by a black herd to—graze, I suppose. How do ostriches feed?"

"Well," said Hoopdriver. "That's rather various. They have their fancies, you know. There's fruit, of course, and that kind of thing. And chicken food, and so forth. You have to use judgment."

"Did you ever see a lion?"

"They weren't very common in our district," said Hoopdriver, quite modestly. "But I've seen them, of course. Once or twice."

"Fancy seeing a lion! Weren't you frightened?"

Mr. Hoopdriver was now thoroughly sorry he had accepted that offer of South Africa. He puffed his cigarette and regarded the Solent languidly as he settled the fate on that lion in his mind. "I scarcely had time," he said. "It all happened in a minute."

"Go on," she said.

"I was going across the inner paddock where the fatted ostriches were."

"Did you eat ostriches, then? I did not know—"

"Eat them!—often. Very nice they are too, properly stuffed. Well, we—I, rather—was going across this paddock, and I saw something standing up in the moonlight and looking at me." Mr. Hoopdriver was in a hot perspiration now. His invention seemed to have gone limp. "Luckily I had my father's gun with me. I was scared, though, I