. In the distant
eighteen-seventies or eighties it was, as a daring innovation, a marvel
and a show. Then came (I went on) all the experiments and developments
under which cycling has become as natural almost as walking, during
which it lay neglected in corners, like the specimen in the London
Museum in the basement of Stafford House. And then an adventurous boy
discovered it, and riding it to-day bravely beside that promenade of
sun-beetles, assisted it (I concluded) to box the compass and transform
the Obsolete into the Novelty.

Some day, if I live, there may visit me from the blue as I totter among
the flower-beds an aeroplane of so scandalous a crudity and immaturity
that all the countryside, long since weary of the sight and sound of
flying machines, then so common that every cottager will have one, will
again cluster about it while its occupants and I drink our tea.

For with mechanical enterprise there is no standing still. Man, so
conspicuously unable to improve himself, is always making his inventions
better.

A Friend of Man

In Two Parts

I. THE FALLEN STAR

Once upon a time there was a pug dog who could speak.

I found him on a seat in Hyde Park.

"Good afternoon," he said.

Why I was not astonished to be thus addressed by a pug dog, I cannot
say; but it seemed perfectly natural.

"Good afternoon," I replied.

"It's a long time," he said, "since you saw any of my kind, I expect?"

"Now I come to think of it," I replied, "it is. How is that?"

"There's a reason," he said. "Put in a nutshell it's this: Peeks." He
wheezed horribly.

I asked him to be more explicit, and he amplified his epigram into:
"Pekingese."

"They're all the rage now," he explained; "and we're out in the cold. If
you throw your memory back a dozen years or so," he went on, "you will
recall our popularity."

As he spoke I did so. In the mind's eye I saw a sumptuous
carriage-and-pair. The horses bristled with mettle. The carriage was on
C-springs, and a coachman and footman were on the box. They wore claret
livery and cockades. The footman's arms were folded. His gloves were of
a dazzling whiteness. In the carriage was an elderly commanding lady
with an aristocratic nose; and in her lap was a pug dog of plethoric
habit and a face as black as your hat.

All the time my new acquaintance was watching me with streaming eyes.
"What do you see?" he asked.

I described my mental picture.

"There you are," he said