the wheel?' I echoed, vaguely, pretending to look wise; but
unaware, as yet, that that word was the accepted Americanism for a
cycle. 'And I have come to ride it?'

'Why, certainly,' he replied, jerking his hand towards the cab. 'But we
mustn't start right here. This thing has got to be kept dark, don't you
see, till the last day.'

Till the last day! That was ominous. It sounded like monomania. So
ghostly and elusive! I began to suspect my American ally of being a
dangerous madman.

'Jest you wheel away a bit up the hill,' he went on, 'out o' sight of
the folks, and I'll fetch her along to you.'

'Her?' I cried. 'Who?' For the man bewildered me.

'Why, the wheel, miss! _You_ understand! This is business, you bet! And
you're jest the right woman!'

He motioned me on. Urged by a sort of spell, I remounted my machine and
rode out of the village. He followed, on the box-seat of his cab. Then,
when we had left the world well behind, and stood among the sun-smitten
boles of the pine-trees, he opened the door mysteriously, and produced
from the vehicle a very odd-looking bicycle.

It was clumsy to look at. It differed immensely, in many particulars,
from any machine I had yet seen or ridden.

The strenuous American fondled it for a moment with his hand, as if it
were a pet child. Then he mounted nimbly. Pride shone in his eye. I saw
in a second he was a fond inventor.

He rode a few yards on. Next he turned to me eagerly. 'This ma-chine,'
he said, in an impressive voice, '_is_ pro-pelled _by_ an eccentric.'
Like all his countrymen, he laid most stress on unaccented syllables.

'Oh, I knew you were an eccentric,' I said, 'the moment I set eyes upon
you.'

He surveyed me gravely. 'You misunderstand me, miss,' he corrected.
'_When_ I say an eccentric, I mean, a crank.'

'They are much the same thing,' I answered, briskly. 'Though I confess I
would hardly have applied so rude a word as _crank_ to you.'

He looked me over suspiciously, as if I were trying to make game of him,
but my face was sphinx-like. So he brought the machine a yard or two
nearer, and explained its construction to me. He was quite right: it
_was_ driven by a crank. It had no chain, but was moved by a pedal,
working narrowly up and down, and attached to a rigid bar, which
impelled the wheels by means of an eccentric.

Besides this, it had a curious device for altering the gearing
automatically while one rode, so as to enable one to adapt it to