| 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 |
| 1 | 65 | 130 | 195 | 260 |
|
VII.
After this whirlwind Mr. Hoopdriver paid his reckoning and--being now
a little rested about the muscles of the knees--resumed his saddle and
rode on in the direction of Ripley, along an excellent but undulating
road. He was pleased to find his command over his machine already
sensibly increased. He set himself little exercises as he went along and
performed them with variable success. There was, for instance, steering
in between a couple of stones, say a foot apart, a deed of little
difficulty as far as the front wheel is concerned. But the back wheel,
not being under the sway of the human eye, is apt to take a vicious jump
over the obstacle, which sends a violent concussion all along the spine
to the skull, and will even jerk a loosely fastened hat over the eyes,
and so lead to much confusion. And again, there was taking the hand or
hands off the handlebar, a thing simple in itself, but complex in its
consequences. This particularly was a feat Mr. Hoopdriver desired to
do, for several divergent reasons; but at present it simply led to
convulsive balancings and novel and inelegant modes of dismounting.
The human nose is, at its best, a needless excrescence. There are those
who consider it ornamental, and would regard a face deprived of its
assistance with pity or derision; but it is doubtful whether our
esteem is dictated so much by a sense of its absolute beauty as by the
vitiating effect of a universally prevalent fashion. In the case of
bicycle students, as in the young of both sexes, its inutility is
aggravated by its persistent annoyance--it requires constant attention.
3
5
Page
Quick Jump
|