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 breeding, 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,