If you had walked into Messrs. Antrobus & Co., a respectable drapery shop in Putney, on August 14, 1895, you probably would not have paid much attention to the young man behind the counter.
He was standing in the section where white linen was stacked in neat blocks and blankets were piled high. Rows of pink and blue printed fabrics hung above them.
He was the sort of shop assistant most customers would barely remember.
When you approached the counter, he would immediately step forward with a polite bow.
“Good morning, madam. What may I show you?”
He spoke in a flat, practiced voice, as though he had said the same words a thousand times.
If you wanted hats, baby clothes, gloves, silk, lace, or curtains, he would give another polite bow.
“Of course, madam. This way, please.”
He would then lead you to another part of the shop.
But if you were looking for towels, blankets, dimity, cretonne, linen, or calico, he would become slightly more helpful.
“Please, take a seat.”
He would lean across the counter, grab the back of a chair, and pull it toward you.
Then he would disappear among the shelves, return with several pieces of cloth, unfold them one after another, and patiently explain their qualities.
“This one is selling very well.”
“We have an excellent article at four shillings and threepence a yard.”
“We could show you something finer, of course.”
“No trouble at all, madam.”
That was how he spoke.
Always polite.
Always formal.
Always exactly the same.
He wore the ordinary clothes of a shop assistant: a black morning coat, a black tie, and grey trousers that disappeared from view behind the counter.
His complexion was pale.
His hair was a dull, dirty blond.
His eyes were grey.
A thin, rather uncertain moustache sat above his pointed nose.
His face was made up of small features, but there was nothing particularly unpleasant about him.
A little rosette of pins was fixed to the lapel of his coat.
He was not handsome.
He was not ugly.
Most importantly, he was almost impossible to notice.
After showing you the goods, he would carefully fold everything back into place.
He would put aside whatever you had chosen and take out a small order book.
Then he would write out your bill in the peculiar, flourishing handwriting used by drapers.
Finally, he would call out:
“Sayn!”
A short, rather stout shop-walker would appear.
He would examine the bill very seriously, as though checking an important legal document.
Then he would scribble his initials across it.
“Anything else, madam?”
If you were paying in cash, he would remain beside you while the young assistant went to fetch your change.
The assistant would soon return.
The shop-walker would then escort you toward the door, surrounding you with polite expressions of gratitude.
And that would be the end of your encounter with the young man.
You would leave the shop without giving him another thought.
But there was something about him that you could never have discovered simply by looking at him from across the counter.
And that something was extremely important.
You see, beneath those respectable clothes, his legs were in a terrible condition.
Let us be perfectly clear about it.
His right ankle was bruised and scraped on the inside.
His left ankle was bruised too, and on the outside was a large yellowish bruise.
His left shin carried two more injuries.
One was an old bruise, yellow and grey with patches of purple.
The other was newer. It was red, swollen, and looked painful.
Higher up his left leg, his calf was hard and badly reddened.
Above the knee, especially on the inner side, there was an enormous area covered with bruises.
His right leg was hardly any better.
There were bruises all around the knee, especially on the inside.
And if anyone had examined him more carefully, they would have found even more injuries.
His shoulders were bruised.
So were his elbows.
Even his fingers had suffered.
In short, the young man had been knocked about from head to toe.
But there is no need to catalogue every bruise.
The important question is this:
How had an ordinary young shop assistant managed to injure himself so badly?
At first, you might imagine that he had somehow become trapped in a machine.
Perhaps a threshing machine.
Perhaps some terrible piece of farm equipment.
But anyone familiar with the injuries would have guessed the truth immediately.
The young man had been learning to ride a bicycle.
And he was very, very bad at it.
The bruises on the inside of his left leg had been caused by repeatedly crashing against the bicycle saddle.
The terrible condition of his right knee told another part of the story.
He had fallen.
Again and again.
Sometimes he had probably fallen for no good reason at all.
One of the bruises on his shin was particularly revealing.
Every beginner cyclist learns about that injury sooner or later.
You are walking beside your bicycle, trying to look as though you know exactly what you are doing.
Then suddenly—
Bang!
The pedal strikes your shin.
You stop.
You grab your leg.
And you discover that learning to ride a bicycle involves considerably more pain than you expected.
This young man had suffered that lesson twice.
The bruises showed that he was not naturally gifted at physical exercise.
The blisters on his hands told another story.
They came from gripping the handlebars too tightly while trying desperately to keep the bicycle under control.
A skilled observer could probably have learned even more from his injuries.
He might have worked out what kind of bicycle the young man was riding.
It was an old-fashioned machine, with a fork-like frame rather than the lighter diamond-shaped frame that would later become common.
Its tires were cushioned.
The rear tire was already badly worn.
And the whole machine probably weighed around forty-three pounds.
So now the mystery is solved.
Behind the quiet, respectable shop assistant was another man entirely.
Almost every evening, after finishing his work, he and a friend would take an old bicycle onto the dark road between Roehampton and Putney Hill.
There, away from the respectable shop and the watchful eyes of customers, the real adventure began.
Two dark figures.
One heavy bicycle.
A lonely road.
Then came the sounds.
“Steer, man! Steer!”
The bicycle wobbled violently.
The young man struggled to keep it upright.
His feet slipped.
The machine lurched from one side to the other.
His friend shouted again.
“Steer!”
But the young man had no idea how.
The bicycle suddenly swung across the road.
For a moment, man and machine seemed to be moving in completely different directions.
Then—
Crash!
The young man landed heavily on the roadside.
He sat there in the darkness, rubbing yet another injured part of his body.
His friend, fortunately, was not discouraged.
He crouched beside the bicycle and began fixing the handlebars.
“Are you all right?”
“I think so.”
“Your knee?”
“My knee will survive.”
“Good. Then let’s fix this thing.”
And after a few minutes, they would probably try again.
That was the remarkable thing about this otherwise ordinary young man.
During the day, he was nothing more than a quiet shop assistant.
He stood behind a counter.
He folded cloth.
He wrote bills.
He repeated the same polite phrases to customer after customer.
But inside him was something very different.
He wanted to feel alive.
He wanted movement, excitement, danger, and adventure.
Even though he had little money, even though he was exhausted after work, and even though every attempt left him covered in bruises, he kept going.
The respectable shop assistant was also a young man who wanted to experience life.
And beneath the black coat, the polite smile, and the carefully folded fabrics, there was a real human being.
That, perhaps, is the first important thing we need to understand about him.