_THE TYRED INN_
The entrance to the Tyred Inn and the parlors and rooms of that
extraordinary place were quite like those of any other roadside hotel,
but the method of conducting it and the singular things that were to be
found in it made Jimmieboy's brief stay there an experience long to be
remembered. The bicycle idea was carried out in everything. If you
wanted a bell boy you had to ring a bicycle bell. In place of an
elevator or staircase they had a spiral pathway running up from the
centre of the hall to the roof, upon which guests could either walk or
ride, an electric bicycle built for two being provided for those who
did not care to walk up, the elevator boy sitting on the front seat and
managing the apparatus.
From the parlor there came the most beautiful strains of music, as from
a fine brass and string orchestra, all of which was managed by the
merest bit of a midget sitting astride of a safety and working the
pedals, which in turn worked the great musical instrument that occupied
the whole of the lower end of the room. Upon the walls were all sorts of
curious pictures, and for a decoration of the ceiling there were
automatic frescoes presenting a constantly moving bicycle scene. For
instance, instead of a series of groups of rosebuds and cupids, there
were about a hundred little plaster wheelmen racing about the edge of
the ceiling, and every once in a while one of these would take a header,
flying immediately back to his saddle again, however, and continuing on
his way until the clockwork by which the frescoes were run forced him
to take the header all over again. On and around they raced incessantly,
and so varied were the things that they did that it did not seem to
Jimmieboy as if he could remember half of them in case he should ever
want to tell his father or his brothers about it afterward.
"That's a fine ceiling, isn't it?" asked the landlord, with a grin, as
Jimmieboy gazed overhead, his mouth wide open in wonderment.
"I should say so," replied the boy, delightedly. "I wish I could have a
ceiling like that in my room."
"Nonsense," said Bikey. "You'd soon get tired of it. It wouldn't take
long for a ceiling like that to drive a man crazy."
"That's so," put in the landlord. "But there are lots of things that
would drive a man crazy that wouldn't drive a boy crazy--like trumpets
and whistles. When it comes to things like that, boys are much stronger
than men. I've known a boy of five to stand banging on a drum for seven
hours, when his father couldn't stand it for seven minutes. Nobody need
go crazy over my bicycle ceiling though," continued the landlord. "I
just press a button and it's all over--see?"
As the little man spoke he pressed a button on the side wall, and
instantly the fresco bicycles stopped moving, the little plaster
wheelmen jumped off and threw themselves down upon the soft grassy
borders of the painted roadside and all was still. Then the landlord
pressed another button and they jumped up, mounted again and the race
began once more.
"That's my own invention," said the landlord, "and it's a very popular
feature of my house. It brings children here. When the mothers of this
neighborhood want to go off wheeling, and there's nobody to look after
the children, they bring them here and leave them with me, and they're
as good as pie as long as that ceiling goes. That's another of my ways
of making money. I charge fifty cents an hour for letting the youngsters
in here, and it's a very poor sort of a day that I don't clear $40 on my
kid account."
"I should think so," said Jimmieboy in a superior sort of way. "I think
that if I were a child I should like to spend a day here myself."
The landlord looked at Jimmieboy with an amused expression.
"Say, Mr. Bike," he whispered to Bikey. "What does he think he is, a
telegraph pole? He said if he was a child. Isn't he a child?"
"Yes," laughed Bikey, "but he is a little old for his age, you know. Had
lots of experience."
"Ha--I see," said the landlord. Then he turned to Jimmieboy again and
said:--
"Now, Mr. Man, if you'll accompany me up stairs I'll show you my
pantry."
"Good," said Jimmieboy. "I must say I'm pretty hungry, and a pantry is
just the sort of thing I'd like to see."
Mounting the "bikevator," as the printed sign over it called the
arrangement that took guests to the upper floors, the party was soon
transferred to the landing above. The landlord, after assisting
Jimmieboy to dismount, walked to the end of a long corridor and, taking
a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked and opened a little door.
"Come in," he said, as he disappeared through the door. "I have to keep
the pantry locked."
Jimmieboy and Bikey entered as they were bid, and the landlord closed
the door after them. The place was dimly lighted, but on the shelves,
that rose one above another from floor to ceiling, all sorts of curious
looking bottles and cakes and pies and biscuits could be seen, and
Jimmieboy's mouth watered at the sight.
"What'll you have?" asked the landlord. "An air cake or a piece of fresh
pneumatic mince pie?"
"A little of both," said Jimmieboy.
"Or a bite of my gutta percha gum?" suggested the landlord.
"Well, it's hard to say," said Jimmieboy. "Indeed, I don't know what an
air cake or a pneumatic mince pie is, nor did I ever hear of gutta
percha gum."
"I know that mighty well," laughed the landlord. "Nobody ever heard of
these patent dainties of mine, but they're the best things for the
digestion you ever saw, and they last forever. If people could only
train themselves to eat my food they'd be able to save money in two
ways--bakers' bills and doctors' bills."
"I don't quite understand," said Jimmieboy.
"One of my pneumatic mince pies will show you in a jiffy," returned the
landlord. "One pie if properly cared for will last a lifetime"--
"Not with a real live boy in the house it won't," said Jimmieboy,
positively.
"That may be all very true," said the landlord, "but if the real live
boy ate one of those pies he would cease to be a real live boy. You see
this pie is made of rubber, and all you've got to do is to blow it up
with an air pump and serve it."
"But you called it mince pie," said Jimmieboy, very much disgusted.
"Well, it's my pie," said the landlord. "I guess I've got a right to
call it what I please."
"But you said it saved doctors' bills," put in Bikey, who was no better
pleased with this absurd invention than was Jimmieboy.
"And I said right," said the landlord, with a self-satisfied smile.
"It's just this way:--If you eat mince pie it gives you indigestion and
you have to send for the doctor, and then you get a bill for several
dollars. Now, with my pie it's different. You can't eat it, and
therefore you can't get indigestion, and you don't have to send for a
doctor. Wherefore, as I said, it saves doctors' bills. This is the
latest make--I make a new kind every year, just as the bicycle makers
make new wheels every year. A 1902 safety pneumatic mince pie costs $2;
a 1901 pie I sell for $1.50."
"And what is the difference?" asked Jimmieboy, beginning to be amused.
"The air in this year's pie is fresher, that's all," said the landlord.
"I suppose your air biscuits are of the same kind?" asked Bikey.
"Yes," said the landlord, "except that I flavor 'em. If you're fond of
vanilla, or strawberry, or any other flavor, I perfume the air that is
pumped into them. They're very nice."
"What are those things on the top shelf?" asked Jimmieboy. "They look
like sausages."
"They are sausages. I make 'em out of old tires, and they are very good
and solid. Then, over there in the icebox, I have rubber steaks and
chickens--in fact, all kinds of pneumatic food. You have no idea how
well they last, and how good they are for the digestion--if you could
only get used to them. That's the greatest trouble I have, getting
people used to them."
"Don't you have any real good food here?" asked Bikey.
"Real? Why, my dear fellow," ejaculated the landlord, "what could you
ask more real than those rubber viands? You could drop a railway engine
on one of those rubber sausages and it would be just as solid as ever."
"But you can't live on air!" protested Jimmieboy.
"No more can you live without it," said the landlord, unlocking the door
and opening it, some disappointment manifested in his countenance. "If
you will come up to the hospital now, sir," he added, addressing Bikey,
"I'll see what can be done to repair your wounds. I am sorry you do not
seem to appreciate the good things in my larder."
"We'd appreciate 'em if we could see the good of 'em," said Jimmieboy.
"What on earth can you do with a rubber mince pie besides not eat it?"
"Oh! as for that, you might use it for a football," retorted the
landlord sadly, as he locked the door behind them and started down the
corridor to the hospital room.
"I call it the hospital room," said he, "although I am aware that
doesn't describe it. We don't take care of horses there, but as yet
nobody has invented a word like bikepital, and so I do not use it. I
have applied for a patent on that word, however, and as soon as I get it
we'll change the name."
With these words they entered the hospital, and if the pantry was queer
the hospital was a marvel.
V
_IN THE HOSPITAL AND HOME AGAIN_
"Come right in," said the landlord, stepping into the hospital. "We'll
fix Bikey up in a jiffy, and as for young Mr. Jimmieboy, we'll see what
can be done to improve his appetite for our gutta percha pies."
Jimmieboy glanced apprehensively at the old gentleman. He did not like
the tone in which the remark was made.
"Thank you, Mr. Landlord," he said, after thinking for a moment, "but
you needn't bother about me. I can get along very well without liking
them. The kind of pies that we have at home are plenty good enough for
me, and I don't really care to like yours, thank you." Jimmieboy had
tried to be at least polite. The landlord laughed unpleasantly.
"Humph!" he sneered, "that doesn't make any difference to us. Article
number seven, paragraph sixty-three, of the hotel laws of Saturn
requires that you SHALL like the food we serve at this hotel, whether
you want to or not. Therefore, what you want or don't want to like cuts
no figure here. You will have to be operated upon, and that portion of
your anatomy which does not welcome the best pneumatic pie that ever was
made will be removed."
Jimmieboy immediately perceived that he was in trouble, for the landlord
spoke with great determination and, what was more, had locked the door
behind him, so that the boy was practically a prisoner. Escape seemed
impossible, and yet escape he must, for no one could relish the idea of
becoming a patient at the Bicycle Hospital. To gain time to think, he
observed as civilly as he could:--
"It seems to me, Mr. Landlord, that that is a curious law. Just because
a traveller doesn't like the food at your hotel he's got to go to a
hospital and stay there until he does like it. Isn't that a trifle
queer?"
"Nothing queer about it at all," retorted the landlord savagely.
"Nothing queer about it at all. Naturalest law in all the world. I'm not
in business for fun, as I've already told you, and if I left any stone
unturned to compel people to like my house I should be ruined. My guests
have got to like everything, including me--I, myself, see? When I pay a
big tax to the government for the privilege of doing business the
government has got to do something to help me on in that business, and,
fortunately for us, in Saturn we've got a government that is just chock
full of justice and common sense.
"When I first started up here nobody liked the food I served, and after
coming here once most of them never came again. Ruin was staring me in
the face, so I went to the capital and I told the government that they
had to do something for me, and they did. They passed an act compelling
people to like my food under penalty of $500 a dislike, or six months in
my hospital, where I am authorized to regard them as patients. Now you
can take your choice. You don't like the pie, you don't like the
sausage, you don't like the rubber chops and the bicycle saddle stew you
look upon with disfavor. There are four things you don't like.
"Now you can do any one of three things. Eat all four of these dishes,
pay a fine of $2,000 or stay here in the hospital and undergo a course
of treatment. I don't care which. There's one thing certain. I'm not
going to let you out of this place until you like everything about it."
Jimmieboy glanced uneasily at Bikey, who was leaning carelessly against
the wall as if he were not at all bothered by the situation.
"But I've got to go to school to-morrow, Mr. Landlord," he put in.
"Can't you let me off long enough to finish my term at school, and then
when vacation comes maybe I'll come back?"
"No siree!" ejaculated the landlord. "I know what you are up to. You're
nothing but a boy, and boys don't like schools any better than you like
my pneumatic pies. You stay right here."
"Oh, tell him you like 'em, Jimmieboy," put in Bikey. "Tell him they
beat mince all holler and pumpkin isn't in it with 'em. Tell him life
would be a barren waste and every heart full of winter if it wasn't for
'em. Pile it on and let's get out. I'm getting nervous."
"Well, so they are in a way," said Jimmieboy. "The fact is, they're the
finest pies ever made."
The landlord's face brightened up.
"To eat?" he asked eagerly.
"N-n-o," stammered Jimmieboy. "Not to eat--but to play football with or
to use for punching bags."
The landlord froze up immediately.
"That settles your case," he snapped. "I'll put you in the violent ward
and to-morrow morning we'll begin a course of treatment that will make
you wish you'd liked 'em from the beginning. And now for you, sir," the
landlord added severely, turning to Bikey. "How about you and my
pneumatic pies?"
"Oh," said Bikey, with a joyful fling of his right pedal. "I simply
adore those pies. Indeed, if there's anything I love in the world it is
gutta percha food. Have you any rubber neck clams?"
The landlord beamed approval. "You are a bikleman of sense," said he. "I
will order up a pneumatic rhubarb at once."
Bikey's saddle turned pale.
"Oh, please don't trouble yourself, Mr. Landlord," he said, pulling
himself together. "I--ah--I should love to have it, for if there is one
thing in the world I love more than rheumatic pneubarb--I mean
rheubarbic pneumat pie--I don't know what it is, but my doctor has
ordered me not to touch it for a year at least. 'Mr. Bike,' said he the
last time I saw him, 'you are killing yourself by eating piebarb
roobs--I mean roobarb pies--they are too rich for your tubes, Mr. Bike,'
were his precise words. And he added that if I didn't quit eating them
my pedals would be full of gout and that even my cyclometer would
squeak."
"Under the circumstances," said the landlord, with an approving nod at
Bikey, "I shall not take it amiss if you refuse to eat them. But your
young friend here must remain and be treated. Meanwhile, I shall have
your wounds repaired and let you go. Mr. Jimmieboy will be sent
forthwith to the violent ward."
"Serves him good and right," Jimmieboy was appalled to hear Bikey reply.
Here he was off in a strange, wild place, in the hands of an enemy, who
threatened him with all sorts of dreadful things, and his only friend
had gone back on him.
"Bikey!" said he, reproachfully.
"Served you right," roared Bikey. "Not to like the good gentleman's
pies. Your father has told you again and again to always like what is
put before you. You impolite child, you!"
Jimmieboy's pride alone kept him from bursting into tears, and he
sorrowfully permitted himself without further resistance to be led away
into the violent ward of the Inn Hospital.
"To think that he should go back on me!" the boy sighed as he entered
the prison. "On me who never did him any harm but break his handlebars
and bust his tires unintentionally."
But Jimmieboy, in his surprise and chagrin had failed to note the wink
in Bikey's cyclometer, which all the time that he had been speaking was
violently agitating itself in an effort to attract his attention and to
let him know that his treachery was not real, but only seeming.
"Now," said the landlord kindly to Bikey, as Jimmieboy was led away,
"let us attend to you. I'll call the doctor. Doctor Pump!" he added,
calling the name loudly in a shrill voice.
"Here, sir," replied the head physician, running in from an adjoining
room.
"Here's a chap who likes air pies so much that his doctor forbids him to
eat them. I wish you'd fix him up at once," said the landlord.
"He must be insane," said Dr. Pump, "I'll send him to the asylum."
"Not I!" cried Bikey. "I'm merely punctured."
"His wheels have gone to his head," said Dr. Pump, feeling the pulse in
Bikey's pedals.
"Nonsense," said Bikey. "Impossible. I haven't any head."
"H'm!" returned Dr. Pump, scratching his chin. "Very true. In making my
diagnosis I had failed to observe the fact that you are an ordinary
brainless wheel. Let me look at your tires."
Bikey held them out.
"Do you prefer homeopathic or allopathic treatment?" asked Dr. Pump. "We
are broadminded here and give our patients their choice."
"What difference does it make in the bill?" asked Bikey.
"None," said Dr. Pump, grandly. "It is merely a difference in treatment.
If you wish homeopathic treatment we will cure your tires, which seem to
be punctured, with a porous plaster, since like cures like under that
system. If, on the other hand, you are an allopath, we will pump you
full of rubber."
"I think I prefer what they call absent treatment," said Bikey, meekly.
"Can't you cure me over the telephone? I'm a Christian Scientist."
They had never heard of this at Saturn, so Bikey was compelled to submit
to one of the two other courses of treatment, and he wisely chose the
porous plaster to cure his puncture, since that required merely an
external application, and did not involve his swallowing anything which
might later have affected his general health.
Meanwhile poor Jimmieboy was locked up in the violent ward. It was a
long low-ceiled room filled with little cots, and the lad found no
comfort in the discovery that there were plenty more patients in the
room.
"Why, the room's full, isn't it?" he said, as he entered.
"Yes," replied the bicycle attendant, who had shown him in. "In fact,
everybody who comes to this house ends up here. Somehow or other, nobody
likes the landlord's food, and nobody ever has money enough along to pay
the fine. It is curious how little money bicyclists take along with
them when they are out for a ride. In all my experience I haven't
encountered one with more than a thousand dollars in his pocket."
"How long does one have to stay here?" asked Jimmieboy.
"Until one likes the food," said the attendant. "So far nobody has ever
got out, so I can't say how long they stay in years."
Again the boy's heart sank, and he crawled into his cot, wretched in
spirit and wholly unhappy.
"I've given you a bed by the window," said the attendant, "because the
air is fresher there. The landlord says you are the freshest boy he ever
met, and we have arranged the air accordingly. I wouldn't try to escape
if I were you, because the window looks out on the very edge of the ring
of Saturn, and it's a jump of about 90,000,000 miles to anything solid.
The jump is easy, but the solid at the other end is very, very hard."
Jimmieboy looked out of the window, and immediately drew back, appalled,
for there was nothing but unfathomable space above, below, or beyond
him, and he gave himself up to despair.
But the boy had really reckoned without his friend Bikey, who was as
stanch and true as ever, as Jimmieboy was soon to find out.
He had lain in his little bed barely more than an hour, when from
outside the window there came a whisper:--"Hi, there, Jimmieboy!"
Jimmieboy got up on his elbow to listen, but just then the door opened
and Dr. Pump, accompanied by the landlord, walked in. So he lay back and
the words at the window were not repeated.
Dr. Pump walked to the side of Jimmieboy's cot.
"Well, young man," said he, "what do you think of air pies up here,
now?"
"They're bully," said Jimmieboy, weakly, and resolved to give in.
"H'm," said Dr. Pump. "Bad case, this. I can't say whether of insanity
or compulsion. There's only one course. We'll order a pie. If he's
insane he'll eat it. If he is acting under compulsion"----
"I won't eat it," roared Jimmieboy, springing up from his pillow. "I
won't; I won't; I won't. I'll take cod liver oil on my strawberries
first!"
His was evidently an awful case, for immediately Dr. Pump, the nurse and
the landlord and every patient in the place fled from the room,
shrieking with terror.
"Good for you! You've scared them silly," whispered the voice at the
window. "Now, Jimmieboy, hurry. Jump out. I'll catch you and we'll be
off. Be quick, for they'll be back in a moment. Jump!"
"Who are you?" cried Jimmieboy, for he was still the same cautious
little traveller.
"Bikey! I only went back on you to help you!" he said. "Jump!"
And then the door opened again, and the landlord and Dr. Pump and the
nurses and all the patients and a platoon of policemen crashed into the
room.
"Catch him, quick!" cried the landlord. But Jimmieboy had already
jumped, landing upon the friendly saddle of Bikey. In an instant he
found himself speeding away through space.
"Are we still on Saturn?" he gasped.
"Not we!" cried Bikey. "That place is too hot for us. We're not on
anything. I'm simply tumbling through the clouds and whirring my wheels
for fun. I like to see the wheels go round. Don't bother. We'll land
somewhere."
"But," cried Jimmieboy, "where?"