"Ride a bike!" exploded Welcome; "me! Why, I was raised on 'em. Never was scart of a reg'lar bike yet, so I reckon two wheels an' a couple o' quarts o' gasoline ain't goin' to make me side-step none. How d'ye start 'er, I ask ye? What knob d'ye pull?"
Penny showed him how to start the gasoline and to switch on the spark. Welcome puffed himself up and patted his chest.
"Nothin' to it," he rumbled. "Watch my smoke, will ye, an' see how easy ridin' a contraption like that comes to a feller that's knowed how to do things his hull life."
He pulled off his coat and gave it to Chub to hold, along with his hat. Then he rolled up his shirt-sleeves.
"Snakes alive!" he muttered, with a sudden thought. "How am I goin' to keep that wooden pin on the pedal?"
"We'll tie it there, Perk," answered Chub promptly. "Wait a minute."
He hung the coat and hat on the hitching-post and started off into the yard. While he was gone, Welcome began pulling up the strap that secured the pin to his stump of a leg. By way of showing how calm and self-possessed he was, he sang as he worked.
"I oncet knowed a gal in the year o' '83,
A han'some young thing by the name o' Em-eye-lee;
I never could persuade her for to leave me be,
An' she went an' she took an' she married me."
When Chub got back with a piece of rope, Welcome was astride the saddle, his foot on the ground, with Penny, who was shaking with suppressed joy, helping to hold up the machine.
"Tie 'er tight, son," said Welcome.