Taming The Bicycle

In the early eighties Mark Twain learned to ride one of the
old high-wheel bicycles of that period. He wrote an account of
his experience, but did not offer it for publication. The form
of bicycle he rode long ago became antiquated, but in the humor
of his pleasantry is a quality which does not grow old.

A. B. P.

I

I thought the matter over, and concluded I could do it. So
I went down a bought a barrel of Pond's Extract and a bicycle.
The Expert came home with me to instruct me. We chose the
back yard, for the sake of privacy, and went to work.

Mine was not a full-grown bicycle, but only a colt--a
fifty-inch, with the pedals shortened up to forty-eight--and
skittish, like any other colt. The Expert explained the thing's
points briefly, then he got on its back and rode around a little,
to show me how easy it was to do. He said that the dismounting
was perhaps the hardest thing to learn, and so we would leave
that to the last. But he was in error there. He found, to his
surprise and joy, that all that he needed to do was to get me on
to the machine and stand out of the way; I could get off, myself.
Although I was wholly inexperienced, I dismounted in the best
time on record. He was on that side, shoving up the machine;
we all came down with a crash, he at the bottom, I next,
and the machine on top.

We examined the machine, but it was not in the least
injured. This was hardly believable. Yet the Expert assured me
that it was true; in fact, the examination proved it. I was
partly to realize, then, how admirably these things are
constructed. We applied some Pond's Extract, and resumed. The
Expert got on the OTHER side to shove up this time, but I
dismounted on that side; so the result was as before.

The machine was not hurt. We oiled ourselves again, and resumed.
This time the Expert took up a sheltered position behind,
but somehow or other we landed on him again.

He was full of admiration; said it was abnormal. She was
all right, not a scratch on her, not a timber started anywhere.
I said it was wonderful, while we were greasing up, but he said
that when I came to know these steel spider-webs I would realize
that nothing but dynamite could cripple them. Then he limped out
to position, and we resumed once more. This time the Expert took
up the position of short-stop, and got a man to shove up behind.
We got up a handsome speed, and presently traversed a brick, and
I went out over the top of the tiller and landed, head down, on
the instructor's back, and saw the machine fluttering in the air
between me and the sun. It was well it came down on us, for that
broke the fall, and it was not injured.

Five days later I got out and was carried down