t off like a pistol-shot. The start sent me into the ditch;
and your wife's face, when I told her there was nothing the matter and
that she was not to worry, because the two men would carry you upstairs,
and the doctor would be round in a minute bringing the nurse with him,
still lingers in my memory."

He said: "I wish you had thought to pick up the lamp. I should like to
have found out what was the cause of its going off like that."

I said: "There was not time to pick up the lamp. I calculate it would
have taken two hours to have collected it. As to its 'going off,' the
mere fact of its being advertised as the safest lamp ever invented would
of itself, to anyone but you, have suggested accident. Then there was
that electric lamp," I continued.

"Well, that really did give a fine light," he replied; "you said so
yourself."

I said: "It gave a brilliant light in the King's Road, Brighton, and
frightened a horse. The moment we got into the dark beyond Kemp Town it
went out, and you were summoned for riding without a light. You may
remember that on sunny afternoons you used to ride about with that lamp
shining for all it was worth. When lighting-up time came it was
naturally tired, and wanted a rest."

"It was a bit irritating, that lamp," he murmured; "I remember it."

I said: "It irritated me; it must have been worse for you. Then there
are saddles," I went on--I wished to get this lesson home to him. "Can
you think of any saddle ever advertised that you have _not_ tried?"

He said: "It has been an idea of mine that the right saddle is to be
found."

I said: "You give up that idea; this is an imperfect world of joy and
sorrow mingled. There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are
made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing
is to get used to something hard. There was that saddle you bought in
Birmingham; it was divided in the middle, and looked like a pair of
kidneys."

He said: "You mean that one constructed on anatomical principles."

"Very likely," I replied. "The box you bought it in had a picture on the
cover, representing a sitting skeleton--or rather that part of a skeleton
which does sit."

He said: "It was quite correct; it showed you the true position of the--"

I said: "We will not go into details; the picture always seemed to me
indelicate."

He said: "Medically speaking, it was right."

"Possibly," I said, "for a man who rode in nothing but