# The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll/Chapter 18

XVIII
That glee which finds expression in raised eye-brows and long, low whistling noises was upon Mr. Hoopdriver. For a space he forgot the tears of the Young Lady in Grey. Here was a new game!—and a real one. Mr. Hoopdriver as a Private Inquiry Agent, a Sherlock Holmes in fact, keeping these two people 'under observation.' He walked slowly back from the bridge until he was opposite the Angel, and stood for ten minutes, perhaps, contemplating that establishment and enjoying all the strange sensations of being this wonderful, this mysterious and terrible thing. Everything fell into place in his scheme. He had, of course, by a kind of instinct, assumed the disguise of a cyclist, picked up the first old crock he came across as a means of pursuit. 'No expense was to be spared.'
Then he tried to understand what it was in particular that he was observing. "My wife"—"Her stepmother!" Then he remembered her swimming eyes. Abruptly came a wave of anger that surprised him, washed away the detective superstructure, and left him plain Mr. Hoopdriver. This man in brown, with ​his confident manner, and his proffered half sovereign (damn him!) was up to no good, else why should he object to being watched? He was married! She was not his sister. He began to understand. A horrible suspicion of the state of affairs came into Mr. Hoopdriver's head. Surely it had not come to that. He was a detective!—he would find out. How was it to be done? He began to submit sketches on approval to himself. It required an effort before he could walk into the Angel bar. "A lemonade and bitter, please," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
He cleared his throat. "Are Mr. and Mrs. Bowlong stopping here?"
"What, a gentleman and a young lady on bicycles?"
"Fairly young—a married couple."
"No," said the barmaid, a talkative person of ample dimensions. "There's no married couples stopping here. But there's a Mr. and Miss Beaumont. She spelt it for precision. "Sure you've got the name right, young man?"
"Quite," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
"Beaumont there is, but no one of the name of—What was the name you gave?"
"Bowlong," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
"No, there ain't no Bowlong," said the barmaid, taking up a glasscloth and a drying tumbler and ​beginning to polish the latter. "First off, I thought you might be asking for Beaumont—the names being similar. Were you expecting them on bicycles?"
"Yes—they said they might be in Midhurst to-night."
"P'raps they'll come presently. Beaumont's here, but no Bowlong. Sure that Beaumont ain't the name?"
"Certain," said Mr. Hoopdriver.
"It's curious the names being so alike. I thought p'raps—"
"I dessay you do," said Mr. Hoopdriver, "if the truth was known."
The barmaid looked down, smiled and shook her head, put down the tumbler, polished, and took up another that had been draining, and shook the drops of water into her little zinc sink.
"She'll be a nice little lot to marry," said the barmaid. "She'll be wearing the—well, b-dashes, as the sayin' is. I can't think what girls is comin' to."
This depreciation of the Young Lady in Grey was hardly to Hoopdriver's taste.
"Fashion," said he, taking up his change. "Fashion is all the go with you ladies—and always was. You'll be wearing 'em yourself before a couple of years is out."
"Nice they'd look on my figger," said the barmaid, with a titter. "No—I ain't one of your fashionable sort. Gracious no! I shouldn't feel as if I'd anything on me, not more than if I'd forgot— Well, there! I'm talking." She put down the glass abruptly. "I dessay I'm old fashioned," she said, and walked humming down the bar.
"Not you," said Mr. Hoopdriver. He waited until he caught her eye, then with his native courtesy smiled, raised his cap, and wished her good evening.