"N-n-o," stammered Jimmieboy. "Not to eat—but to play football with or to use for punching bags."
The landlord froze up immediately.
"That settles your case," he snapped. "I'll put you in the violent ward and to-morrow morning we'll begin a course of treatment that will make you wish you'd liked 'em from the beginning. And now for you, sir," the landlord added severely, turning to Bikey. "How about you and my pneumatic pies?"
"Oh," said Bikey, with a joyful fling of his right pedal. "I simply adore those pies. Indeed, if there's anything I love in the world it is gutta percha food. Have you any rubber neck clams?"
The landlord beamed approval. "You are a bikleman of sense," said he. "I will order up a pneumatic rhubarb at once."
Bikey's saddle turned pale.
"Oh, please don't trouble yourself, Mr. Landlord," he said, pulling himself together. "I—ah—I should love to have it, for if there is one thing in the world I love more than rheumatic pneubarb—I mean rheubarbic pneumat pie—I don't know what it is, but my doctor has ordered me not to touch it for a year at least. 'Mr. Bike,' said he the last time I saw him, 'you are killing yourself by eating piebarb roobs—I mean roobarb pies—they are too rich for your tubes, Mr. Bike,' were his precise words. And he added that if I didn't quit eating them my pedals would be full of gout and that even my cyclometer would squeak."
"Under the circumstances," said the landlord, with an approving nod at Bikey, "I shall not take it amiss if you refuse to eat them. But your young friend here must remain and be treated. Meanwhile, I shall have your wounds repaired and let you go. Mr. Jimmieboy will be sent forthwith to the violent ward."
"Serves him good and right," Jimmieboy was appalled to hear Bikey reply. Here he was off in a strange, wild place, in the hands of an enemy, who threatened him with all sorts of dreadful things, and his only friend had gone back on him.