Harris's one fault--Harris and the Angel--A patent bicycle lamp--The
ideal saddle--The "Overhauler"--His eagle eye--His method--His cheery
confidence--His simple and inexpensive tastes--His appearance--How to get
rid of him--George as prophet--The gentle art of making oneself
disagreeable in a foreign tongue--George as a student of human nature--He
proposes an experiment--His Prudence--Harris's support secured, upon
conditions.
On Monday afternoon Harris came round; he had a cycling paper in his
hand.
I said: "If you take my advice, you will leave it alone."
Harris said: "Leave what alone?"
I said: "That brand-new, patent, revolution in cycling, record-breaking,
Tomfoolishness, whatever it may be, the advertisement of which you have
there in your hand."
He said: "Well, I don't know; there will be some steep hills for us to
negotiate; I guess we shall want a good brake."
I said: "We shall want a brake, I agree; what we shall not want is a
mechanical surprise that we don't understand, and that never acts when it
is wanted."
"This thing," he said, "acts automatically."
"You needn't tell me," I said. "I know exactly what it will do, by
instinct. Going uphill it will jamb the wheel so effectively that we
shall have to carry the machine bodily. The air at the top of the hill
will do it good, and it will suddenly come right again. Going downhill
it will start reflecting what a nuisance it has been. This will lead to
remorse, and finally to despair. It will say to itself: 'I'm not fit to
be a brake. I don't help these fellows; I only hinder them. I'm a
curse, that's what I am;' and, without a word of warning, it will 'chuck'
the whole business. That is what that brake will do. Leave it alone.
You are a good fellow," I continued, "but you have one fault."
"What?" he asked, indignantly.
"You have too much faith," I answered. "If you read an advertisement,
you go away and believe it. Every experiment that every fool has thought
of in connection with cycling you have tried. Your guardian angel
appears to be a capable and conscientious spirit, and hitherto she has
seen you through; take my advice and don't try her too far. She must
have had a busy time since you started cycling. Don't go on till you
make her mad."
He said: "If every man talked like that there would be no advancement
made in any department of life. If nobody ever tried a new thing the
world would come to a standstill. It is by--"
"I know all that can be said on that side of the argument," I
interrupted. "I agree in trying new experiments up to thirty-five;
_after_ thirty-five I consider a man is entitled to think of himself. You
and I have done our duty in this direction, you especially. You have
been blown up by a patent gas lamp--"
He said: "I really think, you know, that was my fault; I think I must
have screwed it up too tight."
I said: "I am quite willing to believe that if there was a wrong way of
handling the thing that is the way you handle it. You should take that
tendency of yours into consideration; it bears upon the argument. Myself,
I did not notice what you did; I only know we were riding peacefully and
pleasantly along the Whitby Road, discussing the Thirty Years' War, when
your lamp went off like a pistol-shot. The start sent me into the ditch;
and your wife's face, when I told her there was nothing the matter and
that she was not to worry, because the two men would carry you upstairs,
and the doctor would be round in a minute bringing the nurse with him,
still lingers in my memory."
He said: "I wish you had thought to pick up the lamp. I should like to
have found out what was the cause of its going off like that."
I said: "There was not time to pick up the lamp. I calculate it would
have taken two hours to have collected it. As to its 'going off,' the
mere fact of its being advertised as the safest lamp ever invented would
of itself, to anyone but you, have suggested accident. Then there was
that electric lamp," I continued.
"Well, that really did give a fine light," he replied; "you said so
yourself."
I said: "It gave a brilliant light in the King's Road, Brighton, and
frightened a horse. The moment we got into the dark beyond Kemp Town it
went out, and you were summoned for riding without a light. You may
remember that on sunny afternoons you used to ride about with that lamp
shining for all it was worth. When lighting-up time came it was
naturally tired, and wanted a rest."
"It was a bit irritating, that lamp," he murmured; "I remember it."
I said: "It irritated me; it must have been worse for you. Then there
are saddles," I went on--I wished to get this lesson home to him. "Can
you think of any saddle ever advertised that you have _not_ tried?"
He said: "It has been an idea of mine that the right saddle is to be
found."
I said: "You give up that idea; this is an imperfect world of joy and
sorrow mingled. There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are
made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing
is to get used to something hard. There was that saddle you bought in
Birmingham; it was divided in the middle, and looked like a pair of
kidneys."
He said: "You mean that one constructed on anatomical principles."
"Very likely," I replied. "The box you bought it in had a picture on the
cover, representing a sitting skeleton--or rather that part of a skeleton
which does sit."
He said: "It was quite correct; it showed you the true position of the--"
I said: "We will not go into details; the picture always seemed to me
indelicate."
He said: "Medically speaking, it was right."
"Possibly," I said, "for a man who rode in nothing but his bones. I only
know that I tried it myself, and that to a man who wore flesh it was
agony. Every time you went over a stone or a rut it nipped you; it was
like riding on an irritable lobster. You rode that for a month."
"I thought it only right to give it a fair trial," he answered.
I said: "You gave your family a fair trial also; if you will allow me the
use of slang. Your wife told me that never in the whole course of your
married life had she known you so bad tempered, so un-Christian like, as
you were that month. Then you remember that other saddle, the one with
the spring under it."
He said: "You mean 'the Spiral.'"
I said: "I mean the one that jerked you up and down like a Jack-in-the-
box; sometimes you came down again in the right place, and sometimes you
didn't. I am not referring to these matters merely to recall painful
memories, but I want to impress you with the folly of trying experiments
at your time of life."
He said. "I wish you wouldn't harp so much on my age. A man at thirty-
four--"
"A man at what?"
He said: "If you don't want the thing, don't have it. If your machine
runs away with you down a mountain, and you and George get flung through
a church roof, don't blame me."
"I cannot promise for George," I said; "a little thing will sometimes
irritate him, as you know. If such an accident as you suggest happen, he
may be cross, but I will undertake to explain to him that it was not your
fault."
"Is the thing all right?" he asked.
"The tandem," I replied, "is well."
He said: "Have you overhauled it?"
I said: "I have not, nor is anyone else going to overhaul it. The thing
is now in working order, and it is going to remain in working order till
we start."
I have had experience of this "overhauling." There was a man at
Folkestone; I used to meet him on the Lees. He proposed one evening we
should go for a long bicycle ride together on the following day, and I
agreed. I got up early, for me; I made an effort, and was pleased with
myself. He came half an hour late: I was waiting for him in the garden.
It was a lovely day. He said:--
"That's a good-looking machine of yours. How does it run?"
"Oh, like most of them!" I answered; "easily enough in the morning; goes
a little stiffly after lunch."
He caught hold of it by the front wheel and the fork and shook it
violently.
I said: "Don't do that; you'll hurt it."
I did not see why he should shake it; it had not done anything to him.
Besides, if it wanted shaking, I was the proper person to shake it. I
felt much as I should had he started whacking my dog.
He said: "This front wheel wobbles."
I said: "It doesn't if you don't wobble it." It didn't wobble, as a
matter of fact--nothing worth calling a wobble.
He said: "This is dangerous; have you got a screw-hammer?"
I ought to have been firm, but I thought that perhaps he really did know
something about the business. I went to the tool shed to see what I
could find. When I came back he was sitting on the ground with the front
wheel between his legs. He was playing with it, twiddling it round
between his fingers; the remnant of the machine was lying on the gravel
path beside him.
He said: "Something has happened to this front wheel of yours."
"It looks like it, doesn't it?" I answered. But he was the sort of man
that never understands satire.
He said: "It looks to me as if the bearings were all wrong."
I said: "Don't you trouble about it any more; you will make yourself
tired. Let us put it back and get off."
He said: "We may as well see what is the matter with it, now it is out."
He talked as though it had dropped out by accident.
Before I could stop him he had unscrewed something somewhere, and out
rolled all over the path some dozen or so little balls.
"Catch 'em!" he shouted; "catch 'em! We mustn't lose any of them." He
was quite excited about them.
We grovelled round for half an hour, and found sixteen. He said he hoped
we had got them all, because, if not, it would make a serious difference
to the machine. He said there was nothing you should be more careful
about in taking a bicycle to pieces than seeing you did not lose any of
the balls. He explained that you ought to count them as you took them
out, and see that exactly the same number went back in each place. I
promised, if ever I took a bicycle to pieces I would remember his advice.
I put the balls for safety in my hat, and I put my hat upon the doorstep.
It was not a sensible thing to do, I admit. As a matter of fact, it was
a silly thing to do. I am not as a rule addle-headed; his influence must
have affected me.
He then said that while he was about it he would see to the chain for me,
and at once began taking off the gear-case. I did try to persuade him
from that. I told him what an experienced friend of mine once said to me
solemnly:--
"If anything goes wrong with your gear-case, sell the machine and buy a
new one; it comes cheaper."
He said: "People talk like that who understand nothing about machines.
Nothing is easier than taking off a gear-case."
I had to confess he was right. In less than five minutes he had the gear-
case in two pieces, lying on the path, and was grovelling for screws. He
said it was always a mystery to him the way screws disappeared.
We were still looking for the screws when Ethelbertha came out. She
seemed surprised to find us there; she said she thought we had started
hours ago.
He said: "We shan't be long now. I'm just helping your husband to
overhaul this machine of his. It's a good machine; but they all want
going over occasionally."
Ethelbertha said: "If you want to wash yourselves when you have done you
might go into the back kitchen, if you don't mind; the girls have just
finished the bedrooms."
She told me that if she met Kate they would probably go for a sail; but
that in any case she would be back to lunch. I would have given a
sovereign to be going with her. I was getting heartily sick of standing
about watching this fool breaking up my bicycle.
Common sense continued to whisper to me: "Stop him, before he does any
more mischief. You have a right to protect your own property from the
ravages of a lunatic. Take him by the scruff of the neck, and kick him
out of the gate!"
But I am weak when it comes to hurting other people's feelings, and I let
him muddle on.
He gave up looking for the rest of the screws. He said screws had a
knack of turning up when you least expected them; and that now he would
see to the chain. He tightened it till it would not move; next he
loosened it until it was twice as loose as it was before. Then he said
we had better think about getting the front wheel back into its place
again.
I held the fork open, and he worried with the wheel. At the end of ten
minutes I suggested he should hold the forks, and that I should handle
the wheel; and we changed places. At the end of his first minute he
dropped the machine, and took a short walk round the croquet lawn, with
his hands pressed together between his thighs. He explained as he walked
that the thing to be careful about was to avoid getting your fingers
pinched between the forks and the spokes of the wheel. I replied I was
convinced, from my own experience, that there was much truth in what he
said. He wrapped himself up in a couple of dusters, and we commenced
again. At length we did get the thing into position; and the moment it
was in position he burst out laughing.
I said: "What's the joke?"
He said: "Well, I am an ass!"
It was the first thing he had said that made me respect him. I asked him
what had led him to the discovery.
He said: "We've forgotten the balls!"
I looked for my hat; it was lying topsy-turvy in the middle of the path,
and Ethelbertha's favourite hound was swallowing the balls as fast as he
could pick them up.
"He will kill himself," said Ebbson--I have never met him since that day,
thank the Lord; but I think his name was Ebbson--"they are solid steel."
I said: "I am not troubling about the dog. He has had a bootlace and a
packet of needles already this week. Nature's the best guide; puppies
seem to require this kind of stimulant. What I am thinking about is my
bicycle."
He was of a cheerful disposition. He said: "Well, we must put back all
we can find, and trust to Providence."
We found eleven. We fixed six on one side and five on the other, and
half an hour later the wheel was in its place again. It need hardly be
added that it really did wobble now; a child might have noticed it.
Ebbson said it would do for the present. He appeared to be getting a bit
tired himself. If I had let him, he would, I believe, at this point have
gone home. I was determined now, however, that he should stop and
finish; I had abandoned all thoughts of a ride. My pride in the machine
he had killed. My only interest lay now in seeing him scratch and bump
and pinch himself. I revived his drooping spirits with a glass of beer
and some judicious praise. I said:
"Watching you do this is of real use to me. It is not only your skill
and dexterity that fascinates me, it is your cheery confidence in
yourself, your inexplicable hopefulness, that does me good."
Thus encouraged, he set to work to refix the gear-case. He stood the
bicycle against the house, and worked from the off side. Then he stood
it against a tree, and worked from the near side. Then I held it for
him, while he lay on the ground with his head between the wheels, and
worked at it from below, and dropped oil upon himself. Then he took it
away from me, and doubled himself across it like a pack-saddle, till he
lost his balance and slid over on to his head. Three times he said:
"Thank Heaven, that's right at last!"
And twice he said:
"No, I'm damned if it is after all!"
What he said the third time I try to forget.
Then he lost his temper and tried bullying the thing. The bicycle, I was
glad to see, showed spirit; and the subsequent proceedings degenerated
into little else than a rough-and-tumble fight between him and the
machine. One moment the bicycle would be on the gravel path, and he on
top of it; the next, the position would be reversed--he on the gravel
path, the bicycle on him. Now he would be standing flushed with victory,
the bicycle firmly fixed between his legs. But his triumph would be
short-lived. By a sudden, quick movement it would free itself, and,
turning upon him, hit him sharply over the head with one of its handles.
At a quarter to one, dirty and dishevelled, cut and bleeding, he said: "I
think that will do;" and rose and wiped his brow.
The bicycle looked as if it also had had enough of it. Which had
received most punishment it would have been difficult to say. I took him
into the back kitchen, where, so far as was possible without soda and
proper tools, he cleaned himself, and sent him home.
The bicycle I put into a cab and took round to the nearest repairing
shop. The foreman of the works came up and looked at it.
"What do you want me to do with that?" said he.
"I want you," I said, "so far as is possible, to restore it."
"It's a bit far gone," said he; "but I'll do my best."
He did his best, which came to two pounds ten. But it was never the same
machine again; and at the end of the season I left it in an agent's hands
to sell. I wished to deceive nobody; I instructed the man to advertise
it as a last year's machine. The agent advised me not to mention any
date. He said:
"In this business it isn't a question of what is true and what isn't;
it's a question of what you can get people to believe. Now, between you
and me, it don't look like a last year's machine; so far as looks are
concerned, it might be a ten-year old. We'll say nothing about date;
we'll just get what we can."
I left the matter to him, and he got me five pounds, which he said was
more than he had expected.
There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can
"overhaul" it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not sure that a
man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the
bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the
roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an
oil-can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He
has to put up with certain disadvantages, of course; there is no joy
without alloy. He himself always looks like a tinker, and his machine
always suggests the idea that, having stolen it, he has tried to disguise
it; but as he rarely gets beyond the first milestone with it, this,
perhaps, does not much matter. The mistake some people make is in
thinking they can get both forms of sport out of the same machine. This
is impossible; no machine will stand the double strain. You must make up
your mind whether you are going to be an "overhauler" or a rider.
Personally, I prefer to ride, therefore I take care to have near me
nothing that can tempt me to overhaul. When anything happens to my
machine I wheel it to the nearest repairing shop. If I am too far from
the town or village to walk, I sit by the roadside and wait till a cart
comes along. My chief danger, I always find, is from the wandering
overhauler. The sight of a broken-down machine is to the overhauler as a
wayside corpse to a crow; he swoops down upon it with a friendly yell of
triumph. At first I used to try politeness. I would say:
"It is nothing; don't you trouble. You ride on, and enjoy yourself, I
beg it of you as a favour; please go away."
Experience has taught me, however, that courtesy is of no use in such an
extremity. Now I say:
"You go away and leave the thing alone, or I will knock your silly head
off."
And if you look determined, and have a good stout cudgel in your hand,
you can generally drive him off.
George came in later in the day. He said:
"Well, do you think everything will be ready?"
I said: "Everything will be ready by Wednesday, except, perhaps, you and
Harris."
He said: "Is the tandem all right?"
"The tandem," I said, "is well."
He said: "You don't think it wants overhauling?"
I replied: "Age and experience have taught me that there are few matters
concerning which a man does well to be positive. Consequently, there
remain to me now but a limited number of questions upon which I feel any
degree of certainty. Among such still-unshaken beliefs, however, is the
conviction that that tandem does not want overhauling. I also feel a
presentiment that, provided my life is spared, no human being between now
and Wednesday morning is going to overhaul it."
George said: "I should not show temper over the matter, if I were you.
There will come a day, perhaps not far distant, when that bicycle, with a
couple of mountains between it and the nearest repairing shop, will, in
spite of your chronic desire for rest, _have_ to be overhauled. Then you
will clamour for people to tell you where you put the oil-can, and what
you have done with the screw-hammer. Then, while you exert yourself
holding the thing steady against a tree, you will suggest that somebody
else should clean the chain and pump the back wheel."
I felt there was justice in George's rebuke--also a certain amount of
prophetic wisdom. I said:
"Forgive me if I seemed unresponsive. The truth is, Harris was round
here this morning--"
George said: "Say no more; I understand. Besides, what I came to talk to
you about was another matter. Look at that."
He handed me a small book bound in red cloth. It was a guide to English
conversation for the use of German travellers. It commenced "On a Steam-
boat," and terminated "At the Doctor's"; its longest chapter being
devoted to conversation in a railway carriage, among, apparently, a
compartment load of quarrelsome and ill-mannered lunatics: "Can you not
get further away from me, sir?"--"It is impossible, madam; my neighbour,
here, is very stout"--"Shall we not endeavour to arrange our
legs?"--"Please have the goodness to keep your elbows down"--"Pray do not
inconvenience yourself, madam, if my shoulder is of any accommodation to
you," whether intended to be said sarcastically or not, there was nothing
to indicate--"I really must request you to move a little, madam, I can
hardly breathe," the author's idea being, presumably, that by this time
the whole party was mixed up together on the floor. The chapter
concluded with the phrase, "Here we are at our destination, God be
thanked! (_Gott sei dank_!)" a pious exclamation, which under the
circumstances must have taken the form of a chorus.
At the end of the book was an appendix, giving the German traveller hints
concerning the preservation of his health and comfort during his sojourn
in English towns, chief among such hints being advice to him to always
travel with a supply of disinfectant powder, to always lock his bedroom
door at night, and to always carefully count his small change.
"It is not a brilliant publication," I remarked, handing the book back to
George; "it is not a book that personally I would recommend to any German
about to visit England; I think it would get him disliked. But I have
read books published in London for the use of English travellers abroad
every whit as foolish. Some educated idiot, misunderstanding seven
languages, would appear to go about writing these books for the
misinformation and false guidance of modern Europe."
"You cannot deny," said George, "that these books are in large request.
They are bought by the thousand, I know. In every town in Europe there
must be people going about talking this sort of thing."
"Maybe," I replied; "but fortunately nobody understands them. I have
noticed, myself, men standing on railway platforms and at street corners
reading aloud from such books. Nobody knows what language they are
speaking; nobody has the slightest knowledge of what they are saying.
This is, perhaps, as well; were they understood they would probably be
assaulted."
George said: "Maybe you are right; my idea is to see what would happen if
they were understood. My proposal is to get to London early on Wednesday
morning, and spend an hour or two going about and shopping with the aid
of this book. There are one or two little things I want--a hat and a
pair of bedroom slippers, among other articles. Our boat does not leave
Tilbury till twelve, and that just gives us time. I want to try this
sort of talk where I can properly judge of its effect. I want to see how
the foreigner feels when he is talked to in this way."
It struck me as a sporting idea. In my enthusiasm I offered to accompany
him, and wait outside the shop. I said I thought that Harris would like
to be in it, too--or rather outside.
George said that was not quite his scheme. His proposal was that Harris
and I should accompany him into the shop. With Harris, who looks
formidable, to support him, and myself at the door to call the police if
necessary, he said he was willing to adventure the thing.
We walked round to Harris's, and put the proposal before him. He
examined the book, especially the chapters dealing with the purchase of
shoes and hats. He said:
"If George talks to any bootmaker or any hatter the things that are put
down here, it is not support he will want; it is carrying to the hospital
that he will need."
That made George angry.
"You talk," said George, "as though I were a foolhardy boy without any
sense. I shall select from the more polite and less irritating speeches;
the grosser insults I shall avoid."
This being clearly understood, Harris gave in his adhesion; and our start
was fixed for early Wednesday morning.