“Que vous êtes bavards ici!”
—Reluctantly we returned to work. The wind was in no friendlier mood, and we rode, as in the morning, with heads down and thoughts fixed upon the pedals.—At Briare—you may despatch it in a word: ’tis an uninteresting town!—we had our first view of the Loire. For the rest of the day the river was always on our right; sometimes far off, and only indicated by its rows of tall trees; sometimes near, a line of grey or silver, as the wind drove the clouds above or beyond it.—We met the Café of the Sun, travelling on wheels.
We were some little time in Bonny. Every one came out to watch J——, as he opened his sketch-book, and in a minute we were surrounded.
“Is Monsieur making plans for houses?” asked one old woman.
—But the event of the day was in Neuvy. There we found a great crowd in the narrow street, and in the midst stood a tricycle. A Frenchman in flannel shirt, grey linen, and gaiters, with a handkerchief hanging from his hat over his neck, at once made his way through the crowd and came towards us.—At last we were to have a proof of the freemasonry of the wheel. But he introduced himself with a circular, and was friendly in the interests of the manufacturers for whom he travelled. He did not think much of the “Humber;” its wheels were so small. He knew all the English makes, because he had an English brother-in-law who lived in Portsmouth. Look at his machine, now; it had a wheel of a pretty height.
We must try it, as he was sure we should once we read the circular, and give up the “Humber.”
Our tandem, with its symmetrical parts and modest coat of varnish well covered with mud, was indeed insignificant compared with the nickel-plated glory of his three wheels, no two of which were of the same size, the largest being as tall as a bicycle.[A] At all events the people of Neuvy, most of whom were armed with circulars, thought so. They looked at us, because a meeting of tricyclers was not an everyday occurrence in their town, but we gathered no crowd of admirers.——
“How many kilometres do you make in a day?” asked the Frenchman.