and agile ankle-action told; I began
to distance him. He seemed afraid that I would give him the slip, and
called out suddenly, with a whoop, in English, 'Stop, miss!' I looked
back with dignity, but answered nothing. He put on the pace, panting; I
pedalled away, and got clear from him.

[Illustration: I WAS PULLED UP SHORT BY A MOUNTED POLICEMAN.]

At a turn of the corner, however, as luck would have it, I was pulled up
short by a mounted policeman. He blocked the road with his horse, like
an ogre, and asked me, in a very gruff Swabian voice, if this was a
licensed bicycle. I had no idea, till he spoke, that any license was
required; though to be sure I might have guessed it; for modern Germany
is studded with notices at all the street corners, to inform you in
minute detail that everything is forbidden. I stammered out that I did
not know. The mounted policeman drew near and inspected me rudely. 'It
is strongly undersaid,' he began, but just at that moment my pursuer
came up, and, with American quickness, took in the situation. He
accosted the policeman in choice bad German. 'I have two licenses,' he
said, producing a handful. 'The Fraeulein rides with me.'

I was too much taken aback at so providential an interposition to
contradict this highly imaginative statement. My highwayman had turned
into a protecting knight-errant of injured innocence. I let the
policeman go his way; then I glanced at my preserver. A very ordinary
modern St. George he looked, with no lance to speak of, and no steed but
a bicycle. Yet his mien was reassuring.

'Good morning, miss,' he began--he called me 'Miss' every time he
addressed me, as though he took me for a barmaid. 'Ex-cuse _me_, but why
did you want to speed her?'

'I thought you were pursuing me,' I answered, a little tremulous, I will
confess, but avid of incident.

'And if I was,' he went on, 'you might have con-jectured, miss, it was
for our mutual advantage. A business man don't go out of his way unless
he expects to turn an honest dollar; and he don't reckon on other folks
going out of theirs, unless he knows he can put them in the way of
turning an honest dollar with him.'

'That's reasonable,' I answered: for I am a political economist. 'The
benefit should be mutual.' But I wondered if he was going to propose at
sight to me.

He looked me all up and down. 'You're a lady of con-siderable personal
attractions,' he said, musingly, as if he were criticising a horse; 'an