upying the middle of the road with his wagon, leaving
barely fourteen or fifteen yards of space on either side. I couldn't
shout at him--a beginner can't shout; if he opens his mouth he is gone;
he must keep all his attention on his business. But in this grisly
emergency, the boy came to the rescue, and for once I had to be grateful
to him. He kept a sharp lookout on the swiftly varying impulses and
inspirations of my bicycle, and shouted to the man accordingly:

"To the left! Turn to the left, or this jackass 'll run over you!" The
man started to do it. "No, to the right, to the right! Hold on!
THAT won't do!--to the left!--to the right!--to the LEFT--right!
left--ri--Stay where you ARE, or you're a goner!"

And just then I caught the off horse in the starboard and went down in a
pile. I said, "Hang it! Couldn't you SEE I was coming?"

"Yes, I see you was coming, but I couldn't tell which WAY you was
coming. Nobody could--now, COULD they? You couldn't yourself--now, COULD
you? So what could _I_ do?"

There was something in that, and so I had the magnanimity to say so. I
said I was no doubt as much to blame as he was.

Within the next five days I achieved so much progress that the boy
couldn't keep up with me. He had to go back to his gate-post, and
content himself with watching me fall at long range.

There was a row of low stepping-stones across one end of the street, a
measured yard apart. Even after I got so I could steer pretty fairly I
was so afraid of those stones that I always hit them. They gave me the
worst falls I ever got in that street, except those which I got from
dogs. I have seen it stated that no expert is quick enough to run over a
dog; that a dog is always able to skip out of his way. I think that that
may be true: but I think that the reason he couldn't run over the dog
was because he was trying to. I did not try to run over any dog. But
I ran over every dog that came along. I think it makes a great deal of
difference. If you try to run over the dog he knows how to calculate,
but if you are trying to miss him he does not know how to calculate,
and is liable to jump the wrong way every time. It was always so in my
experience. Even when I could not hit a wagon I could hit a dog that
came to see me practice. They all liked to see me practice, and they
all came, for there was very little going on in our neighborhood to
entertain a dog. It took time to learn to miss a dog, but I achieved
even that.