Witness, continuing, deposed that for no less than eight years past his employers had given away their German bicycles free.
[Sensation. A furious voice from the well of the court cried, “Let me get at him!” and an Anglo-Saxon of huge stature was with difficulty prevented from making an ugly rush. He turned out to be a patentee of the old style of high bicycles, who had been ruined by the competition of safeties.]
“An Anglo-Saxon of huge stature”
Witness, further examined, estimated the total number of bicycles he had thus offered free at a little over three millions.
Mr. Chamberlain (smiling): Oh, come, Mr. Salter, come!
Mr. Salter (shuffling uneasily): Business is business, my lord. (Loud laughter, in which Mr. Chamberlain joined.) There’s nothing to laugh at. Every man must make the best of himself.
Lord Lansdowne: How were these bicycles bestowed? Did you ask people to your country house, and give them by way of their private secretaries, or did you forget to send in the bill?
Mr. Salter: Neither, Sir Thomas; we put an advertisement in the papers, saying, a “£12 bicycle given away free.”
Mr. Balfour (with interest): I have seen such advertisements, but I never understood what they meant. The words alone seem to make no sense.