"Nonsense," said Bikey. "Impossible. I haven't any head."
"H'm!" returned Dr. Pump, scratching his chin. "Very true. In making my diagnosis I had failed to observe the fact that you are an ordinary brainless wheel. Let me look at your tires."
Bikey held them out.
"Do you prefer homeopathic or allopathic treatment?" asked Dr. Pump. "We are broadminded here and give our patients their choice."
"What difference does it make in the bill?" asked Bikey.
"None," said Dr. Pump, grandly. "It is merely a difference in treatment. If you wish homeopathic treatment we will cure your tires, which seem to be punctured, with a porous plaster, since like cures like under that system. If, on the other hand, you are an allopath, we will pump you full of rubber."
"I think I prefer what they call absent treatment," said Bikey, meekly. "Can't you cure me over the telephone? I'm a Christian Scientist."
They had never heard of this at Saturn, so Bikey was compelled to submit to one of the two other courses of treatment, and he wisely chose the porous plaster to cure his puncture, since that required merely an external application, and did not involve his swallowing anything which might later have affected his general health.
Meanwhile poor Jimmieboy was locked up in the violent ward. It was a long low-ceiled room filled with little cots, and the lad found no comfort in the discovery that there were plenty more patients in the room.
"Why, the room's full, isn't it?" he said, as he entered.
"Yes," replied the bicycle attendant, who had shown him in. "In fact, everybody who comes to this house ends up here. Somehow or other, nobody likes the landlord's food, and nobody ever has money enough along to pay the fine. It is curious how little money bicyclists take along with them when they are out for a ride. In all my experience I haven't encountered one with more than a thousand dollars in his pocket."
"How long does one have to stay here?" asked Jimmieboy.
"Until one likes the food," said the attendant. "So far nobody has ever got out, so I can't say how long they stay in years."
Again the boy's heart sank, and he crawled into his cot, wretched in spirit and wholly unhappy.
"I've given you a bed by the window," said the attendant, "because the air is fresher there. The landlord says you are the freshest boy he ever met, and we have arranged the air accordingly. I wouldn't try to escape if I were you, because the window looks out on the very edge of the ring of Saturn, and it's a jump of about 90,000,000 miles to anything solid. The jump is easy, but the solid at the other end is very, very hard."
Jimmieboy looked out of the window, and immediately drew back, appalled, for there was nothing but unfathomable space above, below, or beyond him, and he gave himself up to despair.
But the boy had really reckoned without his friend Bikey, who was as stanch and true as ever, as Jimmieboy was soon to find out.
He had lain in his little bed barely more than an hour, when from outside the window there came a whisper: "Hi, there, Jimmieboy!"
Jimmieboy got up on his elbow to listen, but just then the door opened and Dr. Pump, accompanied by the landlord, walked in. So he lay back and the words at the window were not repeated.
Dr. Pump walked to the side of Jimmieboy's cot.
"Well, young man," said he, "what do you think of air pies up here, now?"
"They're bully," said Jimmieboy, weakly, and resolved to give in.
"H'm," said Dr. Pump. "Bad case, this. I can't say whether of insanity or compulsion. There's only one course. We'll order a pie. If he's insane he'll eat it. If he is acting under compulsion"
"I won't eat it," roared Jimmieboy, springing up from his pillow. "I won't; I won't; I won't. I'll take cod liver oil on my strawberries first!"
His was evidently an awful case, for immediately Dr. Pump, the nurse and the landlord and every patient in the place fled from the room, shrieking with terror.
"Good for you! You've scared them silly," whispered the voice at the window. "Now, Jimmieboy, hurry. Jump out. I'll catch you and we'll be off. Be quick, for they'll be back in a moment. Jump!"
"Who are you?" cried Jimmieboy, for he was still the same cautious little traveller.
"Bikey! I only went back on you to help you!" he said. "Jump!"
And then the door opened again, and the landlord and Dr. Pump and the nurses and all the patients and a platoon of policemen crashed into the room.
"Catch him, quick!" cried the landlord. But Jimmieboy had already jumped, landing upon the friendly saddle of Bikey. In an instant he found himself speeding away through space.
"Are we still on Saturn?" he gasped.
"Not we!" cried Bikey. "That place is too hot for us. We're not on anything. I'm simply tumbling through the clouds and whirring my wheels for fun. I like to see the wheels go round. Don't bother. We'll land somewhere."
"But," cried Jimmieboy, "where?"
And then there was a crash. Bikey made no reply, but
"Here," said a well known and affectionate voice.
"Where's here?" asked Jimmieboy, faintly, opening his eyes and gazing up into a very familiar face.
"You interrupted me, my son," remarked the owner of the familiar face. "I was about to say, 'Here now, Jimmieboy, this business of falling out of bed has got to stop.' This is the fifth time in two weeks that I have had to restore you to your comfortable couch. Where have you been this time?"
"Off with Bikey," murmured Jimmieboy, rubbing his eyes and gazing about his nursery.
"Nonsense," said his daddy, the owner of the familiar voice. "With Bikey? Why Bikey has been in the laundry all night." Which fact Bikey never denied, but nowadays when the incident is mentioned he agitates his cyclometer violently, and shakes all over as if he thought it was a good joke on somebody.
In all of which I am inclined to agree with him.
THE IMP OF THE TELEPHONE
I
JIMMIEBOY MAKES HIS ACQUAINTANCE
The telephone was ringing, of that there was no doubt, and yet no one went to see what was wanted, which was rather strange. The cook had a great way of rushing up from the kitchen to where the 'phone stood in the back hall whenever she heard its sounding bells, because a great many of her friends were in the habit of communicating with her over the wire, and she didn't like to lose the opportunity to hear all that was going on in the neighborhood. And then, too, Jimmieboy's papa was at work in the library not twenty feet away, and surely one would hardly suppose that he would let it ring as often as Jimmieboy had heard it this time I think there were as many as six distinct rings without going to ask the person at the other end what on earth he was making all that noise about. So it was altogether queer that after sounding six times the bell should fail to summon any one to see what was wanted. Finally it rang loud and strong for a seventh time, and, although he wasn't exactly sure about it, Jimmieboy thought he heard a whisper repeated over and over again, which said, "Hullo, Jimmieboy! Jimmieboy, Hullo! Come to the telephone a moment, for I want to speak to you."
John Kendrick Bangs
Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy
BIKEY THE SKICYCLE
I
HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT
Jimmieboy's father had bought him a bicycle, and inasmuch as it was provided with a bag of tools and a nickel plated bell the small youth was very much pleased with the gift.
"It's got rheumatic tires, too," he said, when describing it to one of his little friends.
"What's that?" asked the boy.
"Big pieces of hose pipe," said Jimmieboy. "They run all around the outside of the wheel and when you fill 'em up with wind and screw 'em up tight so's the wind can't get out, papa says, you can go over anything easy as a bird."
"I s'pose," said the little friend, "it's sort of like sailing, maybe. The wind keeps blowing inside o' those pipes and that makes the wheels go round."
"I guess that's it," returned Jimmieboy.
"But I don't see why they call 'em rheumatic," said the other boy.
"Nor I don't, either," said Jimmieboy, "unless it's because they move a little stiff at first."
It was not long, however, before Jimmieboy discovered that his father had made a mistake when he said that the pneumatic tire would enable a bicycle to ride over anything, for about a week later Jimmieboy tried to ride over the shaft of a lawn mower with his wheel, with disastrous results. The boy took a header, and while he himself was not hurt beyond a scratch or two and a slight shaking up, which took away his appetite, the wonderful rubber tire was badly battered. What was worse, the experience made Jimmieboy a little afraid of his new possession, and for some time it lay neglected.
A few nights ago, however, Jimmieboy's interest in his wheel was aroused once more, and to-day it is greater than ever, and it all came about in this way. His father and mother had gone out to make some calls and the youngster was spending a few minutes of solitude over a very fine fairy book that had recently been sent to him. While he was gazing at a magnificent picture of Jack slaying two giants with his left hand and throttling a dragon with his right, there came a sudden tinkling of a bell.
"Somebody's at the telephone," thought Jimmieboy, and started to go to it, when the ringing sound came again, but from a part of the house entirely away from the neighborhood of the telephone.
"Humph," said Jimmieboy. "That's queer. It isn't the telephone and it can't be the front door bell I guess it's the "
"It's me Bikey," came a merry voice from behind the door.
"Who?" cried Jimmieboy.
"Bikey," replied the voice. "Don't you remember Bikey, who threw you over the lawn mower?"
Jimmieboy turned about, and sure enough there stood his neglected wheel.
"I hope you weren't hurt by your tumble," said the little bicycle standing up on its hind wheel and putting its treadles softly on Jimmieboy's shoulders, as if it were caressing him.
"No," said Jimmieboy. "The only thing was that it took away my appetite, and it was on apple pie day. It isn't pleasant to feel as if you couldn't eat a thing with a fine apple pie staring you in the face. That was all I felt badly about."
"I'm sorry about the pie," returned the little bicycle, "but glad you didn't flatten your nose or put your teeth out of joint, as you might easily have done. I knew a boy once who took a header just as you did, and after he got up he found that he'd broken the brim of his hat and turned a beautiful Roman nose into a stub nose."
"You mean snub nose, don't you?" asked Jimmieboy.
"No, I mean stub. Stub means more than snub. Snub means just a plain turn up nose, but stub means that it's not only turned up, but has very little of itself left. It's just a stub that's all," explained the bicycle. "Another boy I knew fell so hard that he pushed his whole face right through to the back of his head, and you don't know how queer it looks to see him walking backward on his way to school."
"I guess I was in great luck," said Jimmieboy. "I might have had a much harder time than I did."
"I should say so," said the bicycle. "A scratch and loss of appetite, when you might just as easily have had your whole personal appearance changed, is getting off very cheap. But, I say, why didn't you turn aside instead of trying to ride over that lawn mower? Didn't you know you'd get yourself into trouble?"
"Of course I didn't," said Jimmieboy. "You don't suppose I wanted to commit soozlecide, do you? I heard papa talking to mamma about the rheumatic tires on his bicycle, and he said they were great inventions because they made the wheel boy boy well, boy something, I don't remember what."
"Boyant?" asked the little bicycle, scratching its cyclometer with its pedal.
"Yes that was it," said Jimmieboy. "He said the rheumatic tires made the thing boyant, and I asked him what that meant. He said boyant was a word meaning light and airy like a boy, you know, and that boyancy in a bicycle meant that it could jump over almost anything."
"That is so," said Bikey. "That's what they have those tires for, but they can't jump over a lawn mower unless" Here Bikey paused and glanced anxiously around. It was evident that he had some great secret in his mind.
"Unless what?" asked Jimmieboy, his curiosity at once aroused.
"Unless a patent idea of mine, which you and I could try if you wanted to, is good."
Bikey's voice sank into a whisper.
"There's millions in my idea if it'll work," he continued. "Do you see this?" he asked, holding up his front wheel. "This tire I have on is filled with air, and it makes me seem light as air but it's only seeming. I'm heavy, as you found out when you tried to get me to jump over the lawn mower, but if I could only do a thing I want to you could go sailing over a church steeple as easily as you can ride me over a lawn."
"You mean to say you'd fly?" asked Jimmieboy, delighted at the idea.
"No not exactly," returned Bikey. "I never could fly and never wanted to. Birds do that, and you can buy a bird for two dollars; but a bicycle costs you anywhere from fifty to a hundred, which shows how much more valuable bicycles are than birds. No, I don't want to fly, but I would like to float."
"On water?" asked Jimmieboy.
"No, no, no; in the air," said the little bicycle impatiently "like a balloon. Wouldn't that be fine? Anybody can float on the water, even an old cork; but when it comes to floating in the air, that's not only fun but it means being talented. A bicycle that could float in the air would be the finest thing in the world."
"That's very likely true," said Jimmieboy, "but how are you going to do it? You can't soar."
"Not with my tires filled with air," replied Bikey, "but if you'll take the hose from the gas stove and fasten one end to the supply valve of my tires, the other to the gas fixture, fill the tires up with gas and get aboard I'll bet you we can have a ride that'll turn out to be a regular sky-scraper."
It sounded like an attractive proposition, but Jimmieboy wanted to know something more about it before consenting to trifle with the gas pipe.
"What good'll the gas do?" he asked.
"Why, don't you know that gas makes balloons go up?" said Bikey. "They just cram the balloon as full of gas as they can get it and up she sails. That's my idea. Fill my rubber tires with gas and up we'll go. What do you say?"
"I'll do it," cried Jimmieboy with enthusiasm. "I'd love more than anything else to go biking through the clouds, for to tell the truth clouds look a great deal softer than grocery carts and lawn mowers, and I wouldn't mind running into one of them so much. Skybicycling"
"Pooh! What a term," retorted Bikey. "Skybicycling! Why don't you use your mind a little and call it skycycling?"