The man on a bicycle came panting up a hill at the beginning of a large
town.
“Hello! Knickerbockers,” cried the man on foot; “do you call that the
gait for a scorcher? Why, it aint more’n a pair uv bars.”
“That’s all right, little boy,” returned he of the wheel.
“Little boy, yourself! Didn’t you know it was five dollars fine for
ridin’ on the sidewalk?”
“Is it? All right? I’ll pay when I come back;” and the man on a bicycle,
encountering a level piece of road, put an end to further conversation by
a sudden spurt.
But the cyclometer was not to make a steady advance that evening. A
surface crossing lay ahead, blocked by a belated freight train. The
engineer knew his business and meddled continually with the throttle.
After going about two car-lengths in one direction, the train would stop,
remember something left behind, and back up. That is the way to keep a
crowd pacific. Give them plenty to hope for and they forget to fight.
The wheelman rode in slow circles for a while, but finding the slush and
snow too deep for this exercise, was forced to a humiliating dismount.
“Misder!” shouted a dirty urchin with a cold, “did yer know yer ’adn’d
god no lighd? Fibe dollars fine an’ the cop’s in the deepo.”
“O, break away, break away!” snarled the wheelman.
“Young man,” lisped a willy boy, “I thought those things weah called in,
you know.”
“I wish some one would call _that_ thing in.”
This retort was pointed at the willy boy, and raised a laugh.
“How long are they going to keep us waiting here in the cold?” muttered a
querulous old gentleman. “It’s against the law, and the company ought to
be prosecuted.”
“The present company?” ventured a bashful young man, who was dressed as
if going somewhere.
“No, the present company is always excepted,” came from obscurity.
The man with a bicycle snapped his bell uneasily. He was in a hurry, of
course; if you live much on a wheel, hurry becomes chronic, engendered
perhaps by the accustomed sense of rapid motion; but, like many of his
class, he had that fellow feeling for petty law breakers, which comes by
taking chances against city ordinances.
The fellow at the valve was taking his chances too, with excellent
success. The patience of an American crowd approaches the miraculous.
Fifty engagements were being broken and ten times as many toes were
freezing, all because one railroader was too lazy to draw a coupling-pin.
Yet so long as the cars continued to move, no one felt called upon to
interfere.
“How many minutes may a crossing legally be blocked?” demanded the
querulous old gentleman, pulling out his watch.
“Ten, I believe,” answered the flagman, soothingly.
“Ten? Why, we’ve been here most fifteen now!”
“S’posin’ that train on the down track ud move up just as this un was
movin’ away, which ud you have ’rested then?”
The querulous old gentleman looked at the newsboy reprovingly, but said
nothing.
“Might try and have the president pulled,” suggested some one.
“What of? The Road? Wopey dick! He’s got a pull himself.”
The newsboy smiled approvingly upon his mot, during a silence that might
be felt. It was a relief when the wind picked up the tones of a brass
band, playing in front of the theatre, and wafted them in that direction.
“Sub ud oughd to pud runners on thad bike, see?” volunteered the dirty
urchin with a cold.
This aroused the newsboy to a stroke of business.
“New Yawk Evening Sun or Worl! One cent! Sunorworl?”
Here the bashful young man who was dressed as if going somewhere,
separated himself, and cried:
“Conductor, cut this train in two, or I will have you arrested.”
“There, you’re done!”
“Cut it short!”
“Go, take a walk!”
were expressions which greeted this sally.
The bashful young man took up the thread of his private life where it had
broken off, and wished he had separated himself further.
A touch on the sleeve aroused the man with a bicycle. There stood the man
on foot.
“Hello! Knickerbockers. Horse tied, eh? Thought I’d ketch up to you.
Where is your century run? Didn’t I say that there was no scorchin’
gait?”
The man with a bicycle said something that commenced with “damn,” and
then, seeing a pale frightened-looking girl near by, wished he hadn’t. In
the forgetfulness of his remorse he smirched the newsboy with his machine.
“You most certainly want to get done hittin’ me with that there last
year’s safety,” began the latter, speaking loud enough to be heard by
all—but his philippic was cut short by the arrival of train orders, and
the clearing of the road. The man with a bicycle did a handsome pedal
mount and spun skillfully through the surging mob, catching cries of “See
that burning safety!” “Gimmie a ride, boss?” and the like, from those
left behind. But the man on a wheel continued to ride.
The man on foot continued to walk.
And the band played on.