nothing; don't you trouble. You ride on, and enjoy yourself, I beg it of you as a favour; please go away." 

Experience has taught me, however, that courtesy is of no use in such an extremity. Now I say: 

"You go away and leave the thing alone, or I will knock your silly head off." 

And if you look determined, and have a good stout cudgel in your hand, you can generally drive him off. 

George came in later in the day. He said: 

"Well, do you think everything will be ready?" 

I said: "Everything will be ready by Wednesday, except, perhaps, you and Harris." 

He said: "Is the tandem all right?" 

"The tandem," I said, "is well." 

He said: "You don't think it wants overhauling?" 

I replied: "Age and experience have taught me that there are few matters concerning which a man does well to be positive. Consequently, there remain to me now but a limited number of questions upon which I feel any degree of certainty. Among such still-unshaken beliefs, however, is the conviction that that tandem does not want overhauling. I also feel a presentiment that, provided my life is spared, no human being between now and Wednesday morning is going to overhaul it." 

George said: "I should not show temper over the matter, if I were you. There will come a day, perhaps not far distant, when that bicycle, with a couple of mountains between it and the nearest repairing shop, will, in spite of your chronic desire for rest, _have_ to be overhauled. Then you will clamour for people to tell you where you put the oil-can, and what you have done with the screw-hammer. Then, while you exert yourself holding the thing steady against a tree, you will suggest that somebody else should clean the chain and pump the back wheel." 

I felt there was justice in George's rebuke--also a certain amount of prophetic wisdom. I said: 

"Forgive me if I seemed unresponsive. The truth is, Harris was round here this morning--" 

 Prev. P 28/160 next