146 WAYFARING NOTIONS 



and the commons, I made my leading features 

 getting bogged on the top of a hill, walking 

 through a mile of midges on the edge of Martin 

 Rucker's old place, and — well, I won't say any 

 more about the motors for the present, but if 

 relief is not speedily engineered what is to 

 become of poor me, or how I shall be able 

 to do my work, goodness only knows. I do 

 not. 



I have already described another route, that 

 from Hampton Court. Going a more conven- 

 tional way through Ewell, lo ! and behold, as we 

 went over the bridge which crosses Kingston 

 lane, the road which takes you either to Kingston 

 or round by Bone's Gate to Hook, Chessington, 

 Claygate, Ditton, and the parts about Giggs' Hill, 

 I saw an unmistakable Gippo whose identity I 

 can swear to at long range. That was the 

 Reverend Mr Dan Cooper, who used to carry 

 on business in or about the Half-Moon Cricket 

 Ground, Putney, and was a very useful scrapper 

 in his day, also extensively engaged in the coker- 

 nut line. It is always like putting the clock back 

 for me a score years — or, say, a score and a 

 half — to come across this Gipsy Cooper — one of 

 the Stockbridge Coopers, if you please, the family 

 which the well-known aged gentleman with the 

 orange silk bandanna round his throat and a 

 large stock of view-halloas inside it adorned so 

 many years. There was my old friend Cooper 

 with a steam roundabout of fiery, untamed ostrich 

 steeds, and all manner of diversions at the public 

 service, also his name painted in big letters on 

 the revolving machine. Business called me 

 t'other way, but I would have liked to go and 

 have a crack w4th Mr C , and investigate as 



