“What’s the matter with the fellow?” Starbright thought. “Jimmy Michael? Nobody could mistake me for Jimmy Michael!”
Still the farmers stared at him as he wheeled by. Sometimes, when they beheld him coming, they came close down to the road, often the whole family, and stared after him as he passed on.
Once a young woman waved a handkerchief roguishly at him from a kitchen window. Dick began to feel red and uncomfortable; and then, at the next village, he was asked by a member of the mob that was apparently gathered to see him, what the make of his wheel was, and if it was to be sold cheaper than other makes of good wheels, he inquired why the question was asked.
For answer the man pointed to a large placard on a wall:
“Richard Starbright, the world-famous giant of the wheel, will this afternoon make a race against time from New Haven to Guilford and return for the purpose of advertising our new make of record-beater roadsters. Starbright has beaten the record of Jimmy Michael, and our wheels beat the world. He has circled the globe in the interest of our wheels. Wait for him! You cannot afford to miss seeing him!”
“You look a good deal like a Yale guy, but yer size made us think mebbe you was the man,” the citizen explained.
“Yes, I am the man!” said Dick hotly flushing. “I’m a guy all right, too!”
“What’s the make o’ the wheel?” another queried, walking round as if to inspect its fine points. “Looks like you’ve rid it a lot. I should think they’d have sent you out on a shinin’ new one?”
“What countries have you ridden through?” queried a vinegary woman in spectacles. “I do hope you’ve been through Tibet. But if you have, the natives did’t treat ye as bad as they do some folks. I’ve got some real good buttermilk, and if you’d like to drop into my house a minute to rest and tell me about Tibet I’d take it kindly. I’m so interested readin’ ’bout Tibet that I can’t hardly sleep o’ night sometimes. It’s the first house on the corner as you go down—a little white house with green winder-blinds.”
Starbright was in a profuse perspiration.