can't
fall off it and hurt yourself. There is nothing like that feature to
make you attend strictly to business. But I also see, by what I have
learned of bicycling, that the right and only sure way to learn German
is by the bicycling method. That is to say, take a grip on one villainy
of it at a time, leaving that one half learned.

When you have reached the point in bicycling where you can balance the
machine tolerably fairly and propel it and steer it, then comes your
next task--how to mount it. You do it in this way: you hop along behind
it on your right foot, resting the other on the mounting-peg, and
grasping the tiller with your hands. At the word, you rise on the
peg, stiffen your left leg, hang your other one around in the air in
a general in indefinite way, lean your stomach against the rear of the
saddle, and then fall off, maybe on one side, maybe on the other;
but you fall off. You get up and do it again; and once more; and then
several times.

By this time you have learned to keep your balance; and also to steer
without wrenching the tiller out by the roots (I say tiller because it
IS a tiller; "handle-bar" is a lamely descriptive phrase). So you steer
along, straight ahead, a little while, then you rise forward, with a
steady strain, bringing your right leg, and then your body, into the
saddle, catch your breath, fetch a violent hitch this way and then that,
and down you go again.

But you have ceased to mind the going down by this time; you are getting
to light on one foot or the other with considerable certainty. Six more
attempts and six more falls make you perfect. You land in the saddle
comfortably, next time, and stay there--that is, if you can be content
to let your legs dangle, and leave the pedals alone a while; but if you
grab at once for the pedals, you are gone again. You soon learn to wait
a little and perfect your balance before reaching for the pedals; then
the mounting-art is acquired, is complete, and a little practice will
make it simple and easy to you, though spectators ought to keep off
a rod or two to one side, along at first, if you have nothing against
them.

And now you come to the voluntary dismount; you learned the other kind
first of all. It is quite easy to tell one how to do the voluntary
dismount; the words are few, the requirement simple, and apparently
undifficult; let your left pedal go down till your left leg is nearly
straight, turn your wheel to the left, and get