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He ran his hand over his chin, looked at himself steadfastly for
some time, and curled his insufficient moustache up with some
care. Then he fell a-meditating on his beauty. He considered
himself, three-quarter face, left and right. An expression of
distaste crept over his features. "Looking won't alter it,
Hoopdriver," he remarked. "You're a weedy customer, my man.
Shoulders narrow. Skimpy, anyhow."
He put his knuckles on the toilet table and regarded himself with
his chin lifted in the air. "Good Lord!" he said. "WHAT a neck!
Wonder why I got such a thundering lump there."
He sat down on the bed, his eye still on the glass. "If I'd been
exercised properly, if I'd been fed reasonable, if I hadn't been
shoved out of a silly school into a silly shop--But there! the
old folks didn't know no better. The schoolmaster ought to have.
But he didn't, poor old fool!--Still, when it comes to meeting a
girl like this--It's 'ARD.
"I wonder what Adam'd think of me--as a specimen. Civilisation,
eigh? Heir of the ages! I'm nothing. I know nothing. I can't do
anything--sketch a bit. Why wasn't I made an artist?
"Beastly cheap, after all, this suit does look, in the sunshine."
"No good, Hoopdriver. Anyhow, you don't tell yourself any lies
about it. Lovers ain't your game,--anyway. But there's other
things yet. You can help the young lady, and you will--I suppose
she'll be going home--And that business of the bicycle's to see
to, too, my man. FORWARD, Hoopdriver! If you ain't a beauty,
that's no reason why you should stop and be copped, is it?"
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