ou how attached I have already become to Mr.
Robbins. I have already made up my mind that when his own front lawn
gets pretty well cleaned out I shall ask neighbor Robbins to pasture
his sacred cow, horned horse, and five-legged calf in our front yard
for a spell.

I shall never forget the shock I had one afternoon while Mr. Robbins
and I were visiting on our front lawn. I had been pruning one of the
poplars and Mr. Robbins was telling me of the difficulty Professor
Rufus Botts and he had once had trying to teach the wild man of Borneo
to eat olives and anchovy paste. Suddenly I saw a strange object pass
up the street on a bicycle. I had never seen the like before. My
acquaintance with Burr Robbins' menagerie had made me familiar with
most of the curious forms of animal life, but never before had I seen
so remarkable an object as I beheld upon that bicycle.

"Look there! Look quick!" said I to neighbor Robbins. "It is going up
the street and it has wheels under it!"

"Where?" asked Mr. Robbins; "I don't see anything."

"Yes, you do," said I; "I mean the queer thing on the bicycle--can it
be one of your trained animals that has got away?"

"Bless your soul, man," answered Mr. Robbins, "that's not an animal!
That's a woman!"

"Oh, no, it is n't," said I. "No woman ever dressed like that."

"No woman ever dressed like that?" echoed Mr. Robbins, with a mocking
laugh; "why, neighbor Baker, where have you been hiding so long that
you 're so behind the times?"

"I 've not been hiding at all," said I, indignantly. "I 've been
living in Evanston Avenue, and a very worthy locality it is, too!"

"And do you mean to tell me," asked Mr. Robbins, "that women don't ride
the bicycle in Evanston Avenue?"

"Of course they do," said I, "but they don't look like _that_! The
women that ride in Evanston Avenue wear dresses, the same as other
women wear. This strange object (which you declare is a woman) wears
pants!"

"Those ain't pants," said Mr. Robbins; "those are bloomers."

"I don't care what you call them," said I, "they 're pants just the
same, and, what is more, very ill-fitting pants at that!"

"That," said Mr. Robbins, "is the new style of bicycle attire for the
feminine sex. Shocking as it may appear to you, it is much more ample
than the costume which I found to be popular among the female
bicyclists of France during my visit to that country last summer."

"But you don't mean to tell me," said I, "tha