be handy, or not to have time
just then to listen to you, they have a habit of leaving you over for the
night to finish your explanation the next morning. I thought I would
just put the thing out of sight, and then, without making any fuss or
show, take a short walk. I found a wood shed, which seemed just the very
place, and was wheeling the bicycle into it when, unfortunately, a red-
hatted railway official, with the airs of a retired field-marshal, caught
sight of me and came up. He said:

"What are you doing with that bicycle?"

I said: "I am going to put it in this wood shed out of the way." I tried
to convey by my tone that I was performing a kind and thoughtful action,
for which the railway officials ought to thank me; but he was
unresponsive.

"Is it your bicycle?" he said.

"Well, not exactly," I replied.

"Whose is it?" he asked, quite sharply.

"I can't tell you," I answered. "I don't know whose bicycle it is."

"Where did you get it from?" was his next question. There was a
suspiciousness about his tone that was almost insulting.

"I got it," I answered, with as much calm dignity as at the moment I
could assume, "out of the train."

"The fact is," I continued, frankly, "I have made a mistake."

He did not allow me time to finish. He merely said he thought so too,
and blew a whistle.

Recollection of the subsequent proceedings is not, so far as I am
concerned, amusing. By a miracle of good luck--they say Providence
watches over certain of us--the incident happened in Carlsruhe, where I
possess a German friend, an official of some importance. Upon what would
have been my fate had the station not been at Carlsruhe, or had my friend
been from home, I do not care to dwell; as it was I got off, as the
saying is, by the skin of my teeth. I should like to add that I left
Carlsruhe without a stain upon my character, but that would not be the
truth. My going scot free is regarded in police circles there to this
day as a grave miscarriage of justice.

But all lesser sin sinks into insignificance beside the lawlessness of
George. The bicycle incident had thrown us all into confusion, with the
result that we lost George altogether. It transpired subsequently that
he was waiting for us outside the police court; but this at the time we
did not know. We thought, maybe, he had gone on to Baden by himself; and
anxious to get away from Carlsruhe, and not, perhaps, thinking out things
too clearly, we