The Wheels of Chance

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Герберт Уэллс. The Wheels of Chance

I. THE PRINCIPAL CHARACTER IN THE STORY

II

III

IV. THE RIDING FORTH OF MR. HOOPDRIVER

V. THE SHAMEFUL EPISODE OF THE YOUNG LADY IN GREY

VI. ON THE ROAD TO RIPLEY

VII

VIII

IX. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER WAS HAUNTED

X. THE IMAGININGS OF MR. HOOPDRIVER’S HEART

XI. OMISSIONS

XII. THE DREAMS OF MR. HOOPDRIVER

XIII. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER WENT TO HASLEMERE

XIV. HOW MR. HOOPDRIVER REACHED MIDHURST

XV. AN INTERLUDE

XVI. OF THE ARTIFICIAL IN MAN, AND OF THE ZEITGEIST

XVII. THE ENCOUNTER AT MIDHURST

XVIII

XIX

XX. THE PURSUIT

XXI. AT BOGNOR

XXII

XXIII

XXIV. THE MOONLIGHT RIDE

XXV

XXVI. THE SURBITON INTERLUDE

XXVII. THE AWAKENING OF MR. HOOPDRIVER

XXVIII. THE DEPARTURE FROM CHICHESTER

XXIX. THE UNEXPECTED ANECDOTE OF THE LION

XXX. THE RESCUE EXPEDITION

XXXI

XXXII. MR. HOOPDRIVER, KNIGHT ERRANT

XXXIII. THE ABASEMENT OF MR. HOOPDRIVER

XXXIV

XXXV

XXXVI

XXXVII. IN THE NEW FOREST

XXXVIII. AT THE RUFUS STONE

XXXIX

XL

XLI. THE ENVOY

Отрывок из книги

But enough of these revelations. The central figure of our story is now going along behind the counter, a draper indeed, with your purchases in his arms, to the warehouse, where the various articles you have selected will presently be packed by the senior porter and sent to you. Returning thence to his particular place, he lays hands on a folded piece of gingham, and gripping the corners of the folds in his hands, begins to straighten them punctiliously. Near him is an apprentice, apprenticed to the same high calling of draper’s assistant, a ruddy, red-haired lad in a very short tailless black coat and a very high collar, who is deliberately unfolding and refolding some patterns of cretonne. By twenty-one he too may hope to be a full-blown assistant, even as Mr. Hoopdriver. Prints depend from the brass rails above them, behind are fixtures full of white packages containing, as inscriptions testify, Lino, Hd Bk, and Mull. You might imagine to see them that the two were both intent upon nothing but smoothness of textile and rectitude of fold. But to tell the truth, neither is thinking of the mechanical duties in hand. The assistant is dreaming of the delicious time – only four hours off now – when he will resume the tale of his bruises and abrasions. The apprentice is nearer the long long thoughts of boyhood, and his imagination rides cap-a-pie through the chambers of his brain, seeking some knightly quest in honour of that Fair Lady, the last but one of the girl apprentices to the dress-making upstairs. He inclines rather to street fighting against revolutionaries – because then she could see him from the window.

Jerking them back to the present comes the puffy little shop-walker, with a paper in his hand. The apprentice becomes extremely active. The shopwalker eyes the goods in hand. “Hoopdriver,” he says, “how’s that line of g-sez-x ginghams?”

.....

“Lord LOVE us!” said Hoopdriver, and pulled the bedclothes over his ears.

The heath-keeper never moved. Possibly he raised his eyebrows, and certainly he stared harder than he did before. “You’re pretty unsociable,” he said slowly, as Mr. Hoopdriver seized the handles and stood ready to mount as soon as the cart had passed.

.....