“It might possibly muss you up some,” grinned Bert. “It’s a case of ‘the quick or the dead’ when you amble across the path of a twin-cylinder.”
“I should think,” remarked Drake, “that it would shake the daylights out of you to travel at the speed you were going just now along that last bit of road.”
“A few years ago it would have,” admitted Bert. “The way they bumped along was a sure cure for dyspepsia. But with this saddle I could ride all day and scarcely feel a jar. Why, look at this cradle spring frame,” he went on enthusiastically; “it has the same flat leaf springs that they use in the finest kind of automobiles. You wouldn’t believe that there are over 250 inches of supple, highly tempered springs between the saddle and the road. It’s as elastic and flexible as a bamboo cane. Each spring has double scrolls that come into action one after another whenever you have a jolt. Then, too, there are rubber bumpers to take the recoil. Why, it’s like a parlor car on a limited express. No fellow sitting back in a Pullman has anything on me.”
“You’re a pampered son of luxury, all right,” mocked Tom. “We children of toil take off our hats to you.”
Bert made a playful pass at him and went on:
“As to power, it would take the strength of seven horses to match it. The engine has a piston displacement of 61 inches. And yet you can control that tremendous power so far as to slow down to three miles an hour. Not that I often get down to that, though. Fifty or sixty suit me better.”
“You ought to name it ‘Pegasus,’ after the flying horse,” suggested Hinsdale.
“Old Pegasus would have his work cut out for him if he tried to show me the way,” smiled Bert. “Still I don’t claim to beat anything that goes through the air. But when you get down to solid earth, I’d back this daisy of mine to hold its own.”
“The old Red Scout might make you hustle some,” suggested Tom.
“Yes,” admitted Bert, “she certainly was a hummer. Do you remember the time she ran away from the Gray Ghost? Speed was her middle name that day.”