Three Men on the Bummel

ompass-Ditto, as measured by the leg-George in account with his conscience-A lazy machine-Bicycling, according to the poster: its restful

ny; the Danube stream here winding its narrow way past old-world unspoilt villages; past ancient monasteries, nestling in green pastures, where still the bare-footed and bare-headed friar, his rope girdle tight about his loins, shepherds, with crook in hand, his sheep upon the hill sides; through rocky woods; between sheer walls of cliff, whose every towering crag stands crowned

formance lags ever behind human intention. It is easy to say and believe at three o'clock in th

ur way before the heat of t

ning is really the best part of the d

ndoubt

ol and

-lights are s

ndividually, somewhat snappy; inclined to grumble with its food, also with most other things; the atmos

half-past six, sharp, th

sts, faintly: "It will be

lutions." The devil can paraphrase Scripture for his own purpose. "Be

but even feebler: "But everybod

poor things! Say breakfast at half-past six

s conscience, who, however, doesn't believe it, that one does this because of unselfish c

pair of compasses is not precisely

ven hours, seventy miles.

ome stiff hi

iles. Gott in Himmel! if we can't average eight miles an hour, we had bette

afternoon the voice of Du

se we ought to

don't fuss. Lovely vi

e are twenty-five mil

w f

les, a little o

we have only come

t's

n't believe tha

ave been riding steadily ever sin

idn't get away till e

er to

; and every half-dozen

e view. It's no good coming to see

d to pull up so

een an exceptional

Blasien is twenty-five

more

o; up an

d it was downhill

miles. We are twenty-five m

re and St. Blasien? What's that

ere near it. There's a danger i

deration in all things. Pretty little place, that Titisee, ac

was you fellows who suggeste

little place, down in a valley. This Titis

near, i

e mi

s: "We'll sto

erence between theory and practice

rris and I being a little ahead on the tandem-"that t

eneral rule. But the trains don't go

t they wouldn't," growled George

ct, "you would not wish to have nothing but downhill, surely. It would

lence, broken after awh

r-exert yourselves merely

u mean?" a

ng my finer feelings. Personally, I am prepared to go up all these hills in a railway train, even if it's not playing the game. I'll square the thin

gain the ride continued in dogged dumbn

ou say this was of

at particular manufacture it ha

re?" persis

nswered Harris. "Why, wh

up to the poster," sa

ter?" ask

e of machine, a man with a banner in his hand: he wasn't doing any work, that was clear as daylight; he was just sitting on the thing and drinking in the air. The cycle was going of its own

ng any work. But then this man was being pursued by a bull. In ordinary cases the object of the artist is to convince the hesitating neophyte that

or cycling in hot weather is ideal. Old-fashioned landladies might refuse her lunch, it is true; and a narrowminded police force might desire to secure her, and wrap her in a rug preliminary to summonsing her. But such she heeds not. Uphill and downhill, through traffic that might tax the ingenuity of a cat, over road surfaces calculated to break the

eef-tea while riding, he can and does perform. Something, one supposes, he must do to occupy his mind: sitting still hour after hour on this machine, having no work to do, nothing to think about, mus

that they have nothing to think about but the old sweet tale. Down shady lanes, through busy towns on market days, merrily roll the wheels of the "Bermondsey Company's Bottom Bracket Britain's Best," or of the "Camberwell Company's Jointless Eureka." They need no pedalling; they require no guiding. Give

ering aunt beside, no demon small boy brother is peeping round the corner, there never comes a skid

ll the afternoon, carrying these young people. Mercifully minded, they have dismounted, to give the machine a rest. They sit up

cle poster artist sets himse

ds; you feel that if there is another hill beyond the poster they must either get off or die. But this is the result of their own folly. This happens because they will persist in riding a machine of an inferior make. Were they riding a "Putney Popular" or "Battersea Bounder," such as the sensible young man

time, longing to swear, not knowing how; you stout bald men, vanishing visibly as you pant and grunt along the endless road; you purple, dejected matrons, plying with pain the sl

h all other things: does Life

quarrelsome), the collie, the bulldog; never anything new. Now in Germany you get variety. You come across dogs the like of which you have never seen before: that until you hear them bark you do not know are dogs. It is all so fresh, so interesting. George stopped a dog

to have been almost achieved. Yet I cannot bring myself to believe that such are anything more than mere accidents. The German is practical, and I fail to see the object of a griffin. If mere quaintness of design be desired, is there not already the

of the English dog must be a misery to him. Imagine a strong, active, and intelligent being, of exceptionally energetic temperament, condemned to spend twenty-four h

essed to his milk cart. No churchwarden at collection time could feel or look more pleased with himself. He does not do any real

bark, but he can

Another dog passing by makes, maybe, some jeering remark, casting discredit upo

what was that you

r dog, in a tone of gentle innocence. "I merely sa

ce of chalk, did you?

w I thought you woul

e right, I ca

ld lady, who is tired and hot,

did you hear what he

a tram coming round the corne

de. He asked the price of chalk, and he's going t

lady, pathetically, struggling with all her feeble strength to ha

o be in time to take a hand, is dragging a bread cart, followed by a screaming child, across the r

ust twenty-times as much as you'll

think so,

son of a French poodl

er," says the poor milk-woman.

when the bread girl has collected her muddy rolls, and the policeman has gone off

e of care, he adds, cheerfully, "But I guess I taught him the

s the old lady, regarding

ions the chief occupation of the other fellow is to run about behind, picking up the scattered articles, loav

? Well, why didn't he get out of the way? It's disgraceful, the way people leave their children about for other people to tumble over. Halloa! did all those things come out? You couldn't have packed them very carefully; you should see to a thing like that. You did not dream of my tearing down the hill twenty miles an hour? Surely, you kn

ced until he sees the cart smashed up. Then he is very apologetic, it is true. But of what use is that? As he is usually of the size and strength of a young bull, and his human companion is generally a weak-kneed old

tand in front of his horse and call it every name he could lay his tongue to. But the horse did not mind it. I have seen a German, weary with abusing his horse, call to his wife to come out and assist him. When she came, he told her what the horse had done. The recital roused the woman's temper to almost equal heat with his own; and standing one each side of the poor beast, they both abused it. They abused its dead mother

heard from morning to night, but an Italian coachman that in the streets of Dresden I once saw use it was very nearly lynched by the indignant crowd. Germany is the only country in Eur