Just as we come into the sitting-room, I heard somebody pound on the front door.
“They’re after us!” says Mrar.
“Let me see to it,” says the Whizzer.
So he stepped around the house, and came back with his wheel on his arm, and held the door open. The snow made out-doors light; and we saw a little fellow lead a horse and buggy through the yard into the barn lot, and he came right in, carrying a couple of baskets.
“All right, Sam,” says the Whizzer. “Put your horse in the stable, and then build a fire in the kitchen stove.”
The man he called Sam stopped to warm himself at our hearth, and I never saw such a looking creature before. He had a cap with a button on top of his head, and his hair was braided in a long tail behind. He laughed, and his eyes glittered; and they sloped up like a ladder set against the house. He was just as yellow as brass, and wore a cloth circular with big sleeves, but the rest of him looked like other folks. Mrar went back into the corner, and I noticed the Whizzer set his wheel against the wall, and I wondered if he’d left it out for a sign so the little yellow man would know where to stop.
The yellow man went out to his horse, and the Whizzer took off his cap and gloves and coat, and hung them in the sitting-room closet. He looked nice. His eyes snapped, and his hair was cut off close, except a brush right along the middle of his head. We set our chairs up to the fire, and I watched him and watched him.
“If you and that fellow travel together,” I says, “what makes him go in a buggy, and you on a wheel?”
“Oh, I like the bicycle,” says he. “I’ve run thousands of miles on it. I sent Sam out from San Francisco by the railroad, but I came through on the wheel. It took me three months.”