“So it is,” answered Harris, “as a general rule. But the trains don’t go up every hill in the Black Forest.”
“Somehow, I felt a suspicion that they wouldn’t,” growled George; and for awhile silence reigned.
“Besides,” remarked Harris, who had evidently been ruminating the subject, “you would not wish to have nothing but downhill, surely. It would not be playing the game. One must take a little rough with one’s smooth.”
Again there returned silence, broken after awhile by George, this time.
“Don’t you two fellows over-exert yourselves merely on my account,” said George.
“How do you mean?” asked Harris.
“I mean,” answered George, “that where a train does happen to be going up these hills, don’t you put aside the idea of taking it for fear of outraging my finer feelings. Personally, I am prepared to go up all these hills in a railway train, even if it’s not playing the game. I’ll square the thing with my conscience; I’ve been up at seven every day for a week now, and I calculate it owes me a bit. Don’t you consider me in the matter at all.”
We promised to bear this in mind, and again the ride continued in dogged dumbness, until it was again broken by George.
“What bicycle did you say this was of yours?” asked George.
Harris told him. I forget of what particular manufacture it happened to be; it is immaterial.