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Whirlwinds of sand, looking at a distance like huge columns of smoke, are wandering erratically over the plains in all directions. The blazing sun casts, with startling vividness on the smooth white alkali, that awful scraggy, straggling shadow that, like a vengeful fate, always accompanies the cycler on a sunny day, and which is the bane of a sensitive wheelman's life.
He would have liked to go back and suggest that she sing to the seeds as she put them to sleep in their earth cradle, to make their awakening more beautiful. But he turned down the road that led away from the girl, and when he came to a "wheelman's rest," he ate many sandwiches and drank much milk. The face of the maid that served him had been no heaven for the souls of dead flowers.
It might have ended much less satisfactorily, however, and the incident illustrates one possible source of trouble to a 'cycler travelling alone through countries where the people neither understand, nor can be expected to understand, a wheelman's position; the situation would, of course, be aggravated in a country village where, not speaking the language, one could not make himself understood in his own defence.
The similarity between the turnouts of these two countries I am forced to admit, however, terminates abruptly with the horse itself, and does not by any means extend to the driver; for, while the Normandy horse capers about and threatens to upset the vehicle into the ditch, the Frenchman's face is wreathed in apologetic smiles; and, while he frantically endeavors to keep the refractory horse under control, he delivers himself of a whole dictionary of apologies to the wheelman for the animal's foolish conduct, touches his cap with an air of profound deference upon noticing that we have considerately slowed up, and invariably utters his Bon jour, monsieur, as we wheel past, in a voice that plainly indicates his acknowledgment of the wheelman's or anybody else's right to half the roadway.
This gentleman straightway ingratiates himself into our united affections, and wins our eternal gratitude, by giving us a regular wheelman's dinner, after which he places us under still further obligations by showing us as many of the lions of Brighton as are accessible on Sunday, chief among which is the famous Brighton Aquarium, where, by his influence, he kindly has the diving-birds and seals fed before their usual hour, for our especial delectation-a proceeding which naturally causes the barometer of our respective self-esteems to rise several notches higher than usual, and doubtless gives equal satisfaction to the seals and diving-birds.
Cold, heartless, brainless beasts filled the halls where they reigned. The little long-necked man with the bushy head and the yellow wheelman's sandals brought to contrast with them much solid worth, and surpassed them in real beauty. For those sovereigns could all be hacked to pieces, and nothing was lost; they could be replaced.
Then he made the bet, putting the money up in the wheelman's hands; and sure enough, he turned the old woman. Then I offered to bet him again for $200, and he turned it a second time. Then I pretended to drop on him, and refused to bet, saying "that his eyesight was too fine;" but he offered to bet me "that the wheel man could do it."
Imaginably, then, the bicyclist had remounted his wheel and attempted to ride off, when he was stopped and brought back to the miserable error of his confession. The whole ground was then gone over again, and again pardon with warning was given. Even a glad good-night was exchanged, the wheelman's voice rising in a quaver of grateful affection.
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