Page:The wheels of chance -- a bicycling idyll.djvu/282

268 holiday. Jest a draper's assistant. Not much, is it? A counter-jumper."

"A draper's assistant isn't a position to be ashamed of," she said, recovering, and not quite understanding yet what this all meant.

"Yes, it is," he said, "for a man, in this country now. To be just another man's hand, as I am. To have to wear what clothes you are told, and go to church to please customers, and work—There's no other kind of men stand such hours. A drunken bricklayer's a king to It."

"But why are you telling me this now?"

"It's important you should know at once."

"But, Mr. Benson—"

"That isn't all. If you don't mind my speaking about myself a bit, there's a few things I'd like to tell you. I can't go on deceiving you. My name's not Benson. Why I told you Benson, I don't know. Except that I'm a kind of fool. Well—I wanted somehow to seem more than I was. My name's Hoopdriver."

"Yes?"

"And that about South Africa—and that lion."

"Well?"

"Lies."

"Lies!"

"And the discovery of diamonds on the ostrich