As I passed a small house which was the abode of my laundress, my mental depression was increased by the action of her oldest son.  This little fellow, probably five years of age, and the condition of whose countenance indicated that his mother’s art was seldom exercised upon it, was playing on the sidewalk with his sister, somewhat younger and much dirtier.

As I passed the little chap he looked up and in a sharp, clear voice, he cried:  “Good-bye!  Come back soon!” These words cut into my soul.  Was it possible that this little ragamuffin was the only one in that village who was sorry to see me depart and who desired my return?  And the acuteness of this cut was not decreased by the remembrance that on several occasions when he had accompanied his mother to my lodging I had given him small coins.

I was beginning to move more rapidly along the little path, well worn by many rubber tires, which edged the broad roadway, when I perceived the doctor’s daughter standing at the gate of her father’s front yard.  As I knew her very well, and she happened to be standing there and looking in my direction, I felt that it would be the proper thing for me to stop and speak to her, and so I dismounted and proceeded to roll my bicycle up to the gate.

As the doctor’s daughter stood looking over the gate, her hands clasped the tops of the two central pickets.

“Good-morning,” said she.  “I suppose, from your carrying baggage, that you are starting off for your vacation.  How far do you expect to go on your wheel, and do you travel alone?”

“My only plan,” I answered, “is to ride over the hills and far away!  How far I really do not know; and I shall be alone except for this good companion.”  And as I said this I patted the handle-bar of my bicycle.

“Your wheel does seem to be a sort of a companion,” she said; “not so good as a horse, but better than nothing.  I should think, travelling all by yourself in this way, you would have quite a friendly feeling for it.  Did you ever think of giving it a name?”

“Oh yes,” said I.  “I have named it.  I call it a ‘Bicycle of Cathay.’”

“Is there any sense in such a name?” she asked.  “It is like part of a quotation from Tennyson, isn’t it?  I forget the first of it.”

“You are right,” I said. “’Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.’  I cannot tell you exactly why, but that seems to suggest a good name for a bicycle.”

“But your machine has two wheels,” said she.  “Therefore you ought to say, ‘Better one hundred years of Europe than two cycles of Cathay.’”

“I bow to custom,” said I.  “Every one speaks of a bicycle as a wheel, and I shall not introduce the plural into the name of my good steed.”

“And you don’t know where your Cathay is to be?” she asked.

I smiled and shook my head.  “No,” I answered, “but I hope my cycle will carry me safely through it.”