Читать книгу Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy - Bangs John Kendrick - Страница 3

"This is a great place," said Bikey as they sped along. "I've coasted on pretty much every kind of coasting thing there is, and I think I never struck anything like this before. It beats the North Pole all hollow."

"You never coasted on the North Pole, did you?" queried Jimmieboy.

"Oh, didn't I just!" laughed Bikey. "It's made of ice, that North Pole is, and it's so slippery that you can even slide up it – that's awful slippery, when you come to think of it – and as for coming down, well, you'd almost think you were falling off a roof."

"But, wasn't it dangerous?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Not at all," laughed Bikey. "Sliding up you run into the air, and that isn't very hard, and coming down you land in a great snow bank – but this place here is much pleasanter, because it's warmer, and you don't have to exert yourself. That's the great thing about this track. We aren't going at all, though we seem to be – it's the track that makes my wheels go round. It's just a-whizzing, this track is, but we are standing perfectly still. If you should step off on to the road you'd whizz back out of sight in two seconds."

"Well, I won't step off, then," said Jimmieboy a little fearfully; "I don't want to be left up here all by myself."

Silently they went on for at least five minutes, when what should they see before them but a great stone wall, built solidly across the road.

"Hi!" cried Bikey. "Put on the brake – hurry up."

"There isn't one," shrieked Jimmieboy. "I – b – bub – busted it on the lawn mower the day of the accident."

"Back pedal then – back pedal," roared Bikey.

"C – can't gug – get my feet on 'em, they're going so fast," cried Jimmieboy.

"Then p – pup – punk – puncture my tire – take a nail or a pin or anything – or we'll be dashed to pieces."

"Huh! haven't gug – got a nail or a pup – pin or anything," wept Jimmieboy.

"Then we are lost," said Bikey; but just then his tires punctured themselves and they came to a full stop two feet from the stone wall and directly in front of a little hotel, from the front door of which swung a bright red sign on which was the following inscription: —

THE TYRED INN

FOR

THE TIRED OUT

"My!" ejaculated Bikey as he and Jimmieboy tumbled in a heap before the inn. "That was the narrowest escape I ever had. If we hadn't stopped we'd have been smashed all to bits – leastways I would have – you might have cleared the wall all right."

"Good morning, Biklemen," said a fat, pudgy little old fellow, appearing in the doorway of the inn and bowing profoundly.

"What's that you say?" asked Bikey looking up. "I didn't catch that last word."

"Biklemen," repeated the fat little fellow. "It's a word I invented myself to save time and it signifies gentlemen who ride bicycles. Instead of saying 'good morning, gentlemen who ride bicycles,' I say 'good morning, biklemen, is there anything I can do for you?'"

"Well, I should say there was," retorted Bikey. "Just look at my tires, will you? There are twenty-six punctures in the front one and eighteen in the hind one. I should think you'd have better sense than to sprinkle the road with tacks in this way."

"Why, what an ungrateful creature you are," cried the landlord of the Tyred Inn, for that was who the pudgy little old fellow was. "If it hadn't been for those tacks I'd like to know where you'd be at this moment. You'd have smashed into that stone wall and busted yourself and your rider all to pieces."

"That's so, Bikey," said Jimmieboy. "Those tacks saved our lives."

"Of course they did," said the landlord. "And even if you had a right to growl about 'em, you haven't any right to growl at me because the government compels me to keep that part of the road sprinkled with 'em."

"Really?" asked Bikey. "Queer law that, isn't it?"

"I don't see why you think that," replied the landlord. "Is it a queer law which results in the saving of people's lives?"

"No; but the way to save people's lives would be to remove that stone wall," said Bikey. "And that's the thing that makes this place dangerous."

"I don't like to be impolite to biklemen," said the landlord, "but I must say that you don't know what you are talking about. Do you suppose I am in business for fun?"

"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Bikey, ruefully regarding his tires, which looked for all the world like porous plasters would look if they were sold by the yard.

"Well, I'll show you in ten seconds," said the landlord. "Do you see this inn? I presume you do, though there seems to be so little that you see that I have my doubts. Well, this inn is run, not because I think it's a game I'm playing, but because I'm after money. Now, this inn wouldn't earn a cent of money if biklemen didn't stop here. See that?"

"Yes," said Bikey. "That's plain enough, but that doesn't account for the tacks or the stone wall."

"Yes, it does, too," retorted the landlord. "I ran this inn two years before that stone wall was built, and I paid the government $500 a week for being allowed to do it, but nobody ever stopped. Every bikleman in the universe went coasting by here and never a one stopped in, so I never got a cent and was paying $26,000 a year to the government into the bargain. Of course I complained to the Secretary of the Interior, and he just laughed me off; said it wasn't his fault; that I ought to do something myself to make 'em stop, and that is how I came to build the stone wall. They've got to stop now. See that?"

"Yes," said Bikey, "I see. And did you begin to make money?"

"Well, rather," said the landlord. "The first day after that was built a lot of biklemen from the Moon came over here and they ran plumb into that wall. Five out of eight broke their legs, two broke their arms and one of 'em got off with a cracked nose, but every one of 'em had to stay here two months at $10 a day apiece, and, of course, their families had to visit 'em, and they paid from $5 to $8 apiece, and then I charged 'em all for medical services, and altogether things began to look up. I cleared $7 a week steady. But they were a mean crowd. In spite of all the good treatment they got, as soon as they got well they made a complaint against that wall, said it was an outrage, and the government said it must come down.

"'All right,' said I to the Secretary. 'But if that wall comes down I go out of the hotel business, and you can whistle for your $500 a week.' He didn't like that a bit, the Secretary didn't, because his salary depended on the money I paid. Being Secretary of the Interior he got a commission on hotel taxes, and as mine was the only hotel in Saturn, shutting it up meant that he was ruined."

"You had him there," laughed Bikey.

"I rather guess so," smiled the landlord, "and he knew it. Still I was easy with him. I didn't want to have people making complaints all the time, so I said that while the stone wall had come to stay, I'd pave the street for two hundred yards in front of it with cat teasers."

"What?" cried Jimmieboy.

"Cat teasers," said the landlord. "Didn't you ever hear of cat teasers? They're small square pieces of zinc with prickers on 'em. City people generally put 'em on top of their back yard fences so that Patti cats" —

"Excuse me," asked Bikey. "What cats?"

"Patti cats and De Reszke cats – the kind that sing, you know," explained the landlord. "They put 'em on their back yard fences so that these operatic felines would not be able to sit down there and sing and keep them awake all night; but the scheme didn't work. I had an idea that the cat teasers would puncture the bicycle wheels in time to stop 'em, and they did, but they interfered with people on foot as well, and after these people got lockjaw from puncturing their feet on my pavement I took it up and suggested sprinkling the roadway twice a day with tacks. This satisfied the Secretary, and a law was passed compelling me to do it, and I do. How it works you have seen for yourselves."

"That's true," said Bikey, ruefully.

"Well, it saved me," said Jimmieboy.

"But how are we ever to get home?" asked Bikey.

"Oh, as for that," returned the landlord, "gather yourselves together and come inside. I think I can fix you out very shortly, and it won't cost you more than $800."

"Come on, Bikey," said Jimmieboy, "I'd sort of like to see the inside of this house, anyhow."

"I haven't got any $800," snapped Bikey.

"Oh, never mind about that," laughed the landlord. "I run a banking business here, too. I'll lend you all you want. Come in."

And so they went into the "Tyred Inn for the Tired Out," and a most remarkable place they found it to be.