“Think I’ll get such roads as this all through England.”  I ask of my escort as we wheel joyously southward along smooth, macadamized highways that would make the “sand-papered roads” around Boston seem almost unfit for cycling in comparison, and that lead through picturesque villages and noble parks; occasionally catching a glimpse of a splendid old manor among venerable trees, that makes one unconsciously begin humming:- “The ancient homes of England, How beautiful they stand Amidst the tall ancestral trees O’er all the pleasant land.”  “Oh, you’ll get much better roads than this in the southern counties,” is the reply; though, fresh from American roads, one can scarce see what shape the improvements can possibly take.  Out of Lancashire into Cheshire we wheel, and my escort, after wishing me all manner of good fortune in hearty Lancashire style, wheel about and hie themselves back toward the rumble and roar of the world’s greatest sea-port, leaving me to pedal pleasantly southward along the green lanes and amid the quiet rural scenery of Staffordshire to Stone, where I remain Sunday night.  The country is favored with another drenching down-pour of rain during the night, and moisture relentlessly descends at short, unreliable intervals on Monday morning, as I proceed toward Birmingham.  Notwithstanding the superabundant moisture the morning ride is a most enjoyable occasion, requiring but a dash of sunshine to make everything perfect.  The mystic voice of the cuckoo is heard from many an emerald copse around; songsters that inhabit only the green hedges and woods of “Merrie England” are carolling their morning vespers in all directions; skylarks are soaring, soaring skyward, warbling their unceasing paeans of praise as they gradually ascend into cloudland’s shadowy realms; and occasionally I bowl along beneath an archway of spreading beeches that are colonized by crowds of noisy rooks incessantly “cawing” their approval or disapproval of things in general.  Surely England, with its wellnigh perfect roads, the wonderful greenness of its vegetation, and its roadsters that meet and regard their steel-ribbed rivals with supreme indifference, is the natural paradise of ’cyclers.  There is no annoying dismounting for frightened horses on these happy highways, for the English horse, though spirited and brim-ful of fire, has long since accepted the inevitable, and either has made friends with the wheelman and his swift-winged steed, or, what is equally agreeable, maintain a a haughty reserve.  Pushing along leisurely, between showers, into Warwickshire, I reach Birmingham about three o’clock, and, after spending an hour or so looking over some tricycle works, and calling for a leather writing-case they are making especially for my tour, I wheel on to Coventry, having the company, of Mr. Priest, Jr., of the tricycle works, as far as Stonehouse.  Between Birmingham and Coventry the recent rainfall has evidently been less, and I mentally note this fifteen-mile stretch