kindliness.

"Well, my son," he said cheerily, "tired out? I saw you run. You have
a fine pair of heels. They have good speed in them."

"I wanted to catch up with someone,--an old beggar-man who lost
something in our area-way. I wanted to return it to him," explained
Lionel, breathlessly.

The stranger gazed down at him more kindly than ever. "So? But one
can't expect to catch up with folks when one gets _winded_ and has to
stop every now and then for breath. Better try my mode."

"Please, sir, what is your mode?" inquired Lionel, with his politest
manner.

"To begin with," explained his companion, "I have to accomplish the
most astonishing feats in the manner of speed. Literally I have to
travel so fast that I am in two places at once. You will the better
believe me when I tell you who I am,--Jack Frost, at your service, sir.
Now, by what means do you think I manage it ?"

"I 'm sure I don't know. I should like immensely to find out," Lionel
returned.

"How do you get to places yourself?" inquired Jack Frost. "Do you
always run?"

"Oh, no, indeed. I almost always ride on my bicycle. Then I can _go_
like anything, 'specially down _coasts_. Upgrades are kind of hard
sometimes, but not so very. Oh, I can go quick enough when I have my
bicycle."

"Now then," broke in Jack Frost, "you use a bicycle,--that is, a
machine having two wheels. Now _I_ use a something having but one
wheel; consequently it goes twice as fast,--oh! much more than twice as
fast."

"One wheel?" repeated Lionel, thoughtfully; "seems to me I never
heard of that kind of an one."

"Suppose you guess," proposed Jack Frost. "I 'll put it in the form of
a conundrum: If a thing having two wheels is called a _bi_cycle, what
would a thing having but one be called?"

"Oh, that's an old one. I 've heard that before, and the answer is, a
wheelbarrow, you know."

Jack Frost shook his head, "I see I shall have to tell you," he said.
"If a thing having two wheels is called a _bi_cycle, a thing having but
one would naturally be an _i_cicle. Of course you might have known I
should use an icicle."

"But oh, Mr. Frost," objected Lionel, "I never saw an icicle with a
wheel in my life, and I never saw one go either."

"That's because you have n't seen me on one; and even if you had seen
me on one, you wouldn't have known it,--we travel so fast. Did you
ever notice that when things are going at the very rapidest rate
possible,