“After that,” said Cole, “you’ll have to mend the tyre again; and I’d say, if you’re any kind of good at all, that by the time you’ve done with it it’ll be beyond the help of man in the way of holding the air.”
“It’s a great stratagem,” said Lord Manton; “I never heard a better.”
“It’s what I was reading in a book one time,” said Cole. “You know the book, sergeant——”
“I’ve heard you speaking about it,” said the sergeant, “many a time.”
“Well,” said Cole, “that stratagem was in it. It was a young fellow that was off with a girl that he was wishing to marry and her father was after them. It was bicycles they had. And the young fellow gave half a crown to the man in the hotel to do the like to the old chap’s bicycle the way he’d get off with the girl.”
“Whether the idea is absolutely original or not,” said Lord Manton, “you deserve the greatest credit for applying it to this particular case.”
“It was in my mind,” said Cole, “and I just said to myself that maybe, if I didn’t forget it, it might come in handy some day.”
“At the latter end,” said Moriarty, “she’ll be asking where the sergeant is.”
“At the latter end,” said Mr. Goddard, “when the bicycle’s quite past mending, you can tell her that he was obliged to start to Rosivera without her and take Cole along with him.”
“She’ll have the face ate off me when I do,” said Moriarty.