The stranger gazed down at him more kindly than ever. "So? But one can't expect to catch up with folks when one gets winded and has to stop every now and then for breath. Better try my mode."
"Please, sir, what is your mode?" inquired Lionel, with his politest manner.
"To begin with," explained his companion, "I have to accomplish the most astonishing feats in the manner of speed. Literally I have to travel so fast that I am in two places at once. You will the better believe me when I tell you who I am,—Jack Frost, at your service, sir. Now, by what means do you think I manage it ?"
"I 'm sure I don't know. I should like immensely to find out," Lionel returned.
"How do you get to places yourself?" inquired Jack Frost. "Do you always run?"
"Oh, no, indeed. I almost always ride on my bicycle. Then I can go like anything, 'specially down coasts. Upgrades are kind of hard sometimes, but not so very. Oh, I can go quick enough when I have my bicycle."
"Now then," broke in Jack Frost, "you use a bicycle,—that is, a machine having two wheels. Now I use a something having but one wheel; consequently it goes twice as fast,—oh! much more than twice as fast."
"One wheel?" repeated Lionel, thoughtfully; "seems to me I never heard of that kind of an one."
"Suppose you guess," proposed Jack Frost. "I 'll put it in the form of a conundrum: If a thing having two wheels is called a _bi_cycle, what would a thing having but one be called?"
"Oh, that's an old one. I 've heard that before, and the answer is, a wheelbarrow, you know."