Richmal Crompton

“ He looked too young—not manly enough, not the sort of figure to confront a raging robber chief or cow with stern dignity. With set face he tore off the flannel suit and put on his blue serge. That, he decided, looked better. Then a terrible thought struck him. Suppose that the girl he'd seen wasn't Gladys's cousin! Good Heavens! His whole future life blighted! Drops of perspiration stood out on his brow at the thought. But Fate could not be so cruel as that. He wrenched his thoughts from the dreadful prospect and forced them to face the problem of his tie. ”

“ He must be all that was upright and good and noble for the rest of his life—even if he never met her again. He would never marry, of course, in that case. People would wonder why, but he wouldn't tell them. It would be his secret. He looked down at Rosamund and saw her suddenly as a mere mechanical motor-cycle without a soul. ”

“ If he made the mistake of letting his eyes rest upon it too soon, he was fixed with a ghastly smile and a raised hat for an agonising length of time until the figure had made its self-possessed salutation (all girls are self-possessed) and passed on. If he waited till he was just abreast of it, the few moments before he came abreast were so unutterably painful. ... He often thought how easy life must be in a place where no one knew anyone.
Moreover, he was sorry that he was wheeling Rosamund. He seemed always to be wheeling Rosamund when he met anyone he knew. ”

“ He watched her walk past the cow. The cow raised limpid eyes and munched peacefully as she passed. Henry gave a short ironic laugh. Always trust a cow to let you down! He waited with a frown of fierce determination till the sound of the greetings in the hall had died away and the drawing-room door had shut. Then he went down the stairs. Outside the drawing-room he stopped to pull up his socks, straighten his tie, and smooth back his hair. As a matter of fact, his hair was too much cowed by grease and brushing to have any spirit for resistance left. It lay inert and beaten beneath Henry's hand. ”

“ Boy! The insult to Rosamund he hardly noticed. Then he freed his feet with a desperate movement and stood up, smoothing back his hair.
"I can explain everything. I'm not a thief—not an ordinary thief." The old gentleman was feeling in all his pockets. "I only wanted a Chinese stamp. It was a question of all my life being involved—that is to say—you wouldn't understand——"
"He's mad," said the old gentleman, having satisfied himself that Henry's pockets were empty, and escorting him from the room by his collar.
"I'm not mad," said Henry. "I'm trying to explain. She said it had to be Chinese. ”

“ HENRY AUGUSTUS BRADLEY had reached his seventeenth year without having felt the darts of the little god of Love. His deepest feelings so far had been centred in his motor-cycle—a noisy and somewhat erratic affair of the cheaper variety—whose defective silencer caused his near neighbours the expenditure of much breath and ingenuity in the effort to convey adequately their opinion of it. But Henry Augustus Bradley cared for none of these things. She—motor-cycles are of the feminine gender—was the object of his dreams and his one and only love. ”

“ Suppose he lost his chance, and some other man won her, and all his life was blighted! It was a ghastly thought—almost unbearable. His hair, disturbed doubtless by the agonised turmoil taking place beneath it, recovered from the effects of the grease and began to rise. ”

“ There's a man under the bed! I can see his bootlaces."
Bother his bootlaces! They were always coming untied. But—man! That was balm to a soul continually tortured, even in its seventeenth year, by being referred to as "boy." She could see he was a man just by his bootlaces. Anyway, he'd done it. Even if they hung him or put him in prison for life, he'd done it! He'd got the Chinese stamp for her. ”