aws of
gravitation and centrifugal force to the utmost limitation, and
describes a magnificent segment of a great circle. Almost before you
can wink he is straight again, and pegging along with irresistible
pertinacity.

Just beyond the hamlet a suburban lady is encountered, with clasped
hands and beseeching eyes, for a loose hairy bundle, animated by the
spirit of a dog, stands in the middle of the road, bidding defiance to
the entire universe! The hairy bundle loses its head all at once,
likewise its heart: it has not spirit left even to get out of the way.
A momentary lean of the bicycle first to the left and then to the right
describes what artists call "the line of beauty," in a bight of which
the bundle remains behind, crushed in spirit, but unhurt in body.

At the bottom of the next hill a small roadside inn greets our cyclist.
That which cocks, kittens, dangers, and dogs could not effect, the inn
accomplishes. He "slows." In front of the door he describes an airy
circlet, dismounting while yet in motion, leans the lightning express
against the wall, and enters. What! does that vigorous, handsome,
powerful fellow, in the flush of early manhood, drink? Ay, truly he
does.

"Glass of bitter, sir?" asks the exuberant landlord.

"Ginger," says the young man, pointing significantly to a bit of blue
ribbon in his button-hole.

"Come far to-day, sir?" asks the host, as he pours out the liquid.

"Fifty miles--rather more," says Barret, setting down the glass.

"Fine weather, sir, for bicycling," says the landlord, sweeping in the
coppers.

"Very; good-day."

Before that cheery "Good-day" had ceased to affect the publican's brain
Barret was again spinning along the road to London.

It was the road on which the mail coaches of former days used to whirl,
to the merry music of bugle, wheel, and whip, along which so many men
and women had plodded in days gone by, in search of fame and fortune and
happiness: some, to find these in a greater or less degree, with much of
the tinsel rubbed off, others, to find none of them, but instead
thereof, wreck and ruin in the mighty human whirlpool; and not a few to
discover the fact that happiness does not depend either on fortune or
fame, but on spiritual harmony with God in Jesus Christ.

Pedestrians there still were on that road, bound for the same goal, and,
doubtless, with similar aims; but mail and other coaches had been driven
from the scene.

Barret had the br