It looked so fine this morning that I determined to go for a long ride. So I got out the pump and blew up the tires, put the monkey-wrench to a few nuts, filled the lamp, trimmed the wick, polished up the bell and the handle-bars, and started off. The roads were perfect. The fields were shining with dew, the hedges were sweet with honey-suckle, and I skimmed along like the wind until suddenly, at the turn at the foot of Claymore Hill, I rode bang into a flock of sheep and came down with a smash. You never saw such a ruin. The lamp and bell were lost completely, the handle-bars were twisted into corkscrews, the tires were cut to ribbons, the spokes looked like part of a spider's web, my hands and my knees were cut, and the worst of it was that the shepherd's dog mistook me for an enemy and I had to beat him off with the monkey-wrench, until the farmer heard the noise and came to the rescue.
During this story all the players named would, in the ordinary way, stand up for a moment when their adopted names were mentioned, except at the point when the accident occurs, and then every player bearing the name of a part of the bicycle—the handle-bars, spokes, tires, chain, air-pump, lamp, wick, bell, monkey-wrench, pump, nuts—should fall to the ground.
Drawing-Room Acrobatics
There are various feats which can be performed in a small room without injury to furniture. To lie flat on the floor on one's back and be lifted into an upright position by a pair of hands under the back of the head, keeping stiff all the time, is a favorite accomplishment. Another is to bend over and touch the floor with the tips of the fingers without bending the knees. Another is, keeping your feet behind a line, to see who, by stretching along the ground supported on the left hand only, can place a penny with the right hand the farthest distance and get back again to an upright position behind the line without moving the feet or using the right hand for a support. This done, the penny must be recovered in the same way.
Another feat is, keeping your feet together and one arm behind you, to see how far back from the wall it is possible to place your feet (remembering that you have to get into an upright position again) while you lean forward supported by the other hand laid flat against the wall.
Another is to keep the toes to a line, and kneel down and get up again without using the hands.
Another is to make a bridge of your body from chair to chair, resting the back of your neck on one and your heels on the other. This is done by beginning with three chairs, one under the back, and then when you are rigid enough having the third one removed.
Acrobatic Impossibilities
If you hold your hands across your chest in a straight line with the tips of the forefingers pressed together, it will be impossible for any one else, however strong, to hold by your arms and pull those finger-tips apart.
It is quite safe to stand a person against the wall with his heels touching it, and, laying a shilling on the floor a foot or so is front of him, to say it will be his if he can pick it up without moving his heels from the wall.