"Humph," said Jimmieboy. "That's queer. It isn't the telephone and it can't be the front door bell—I guess it's the——"
"It's me—Bikey," came a merry voice from behind the door.
"Who?" cried Jimmieboy.
"Bikey," replied the voice. "Don't you remember Bikey, who threw you over the lawn mower?"
Jimmieboy turned about, and sure enough there stood his neglected wheel.
"I hope you weren't hurt by your tumble," said the little bicycle standing up on its hind wheel and putting its treadles softly on Jimmieboy's shoulders, as if it were caressing him.
"No," said Jimmieboy. "The only thing was that it took away my appetite, and it was on apple pie day. It isn't pleasant to feel as if you couldn't eat a thing with a fine apple pie staring you in the face. That was all I felt badly about."
"I'm sorry about the pie," returned the little bicycle, "but glad you didn't flatten your nose or put your teeth out of joint, as you might easily have done. I knew a boy once who took a header just as you did, and after he got up he found that he'd broken the brim of his hat and turned a beautiful Roman nose into a stub nose."
"You mean snub nose, don't you?" asked Jimmieboy.
"No, I mean stub. Stub means more than snub. Snub means just a plain turn up nose, but stub means that it's not only turned up, but has very little of itself left. It's just a stub—that's all," explained the bicycle. "Another boy I knew fell so hard that he pushed his whole face right through to the back of his head, and you don't know how queer it looks to see him walking backward on his way to school."