"Oh, like most of them!" I answered; "easily enough in the morning; goes a little stiffly after lunch."
He caught hold of it by the front wheel and the fork and shook it violently.
I said: "Don’t do that; you’ll hurt it."
I did not see why he should shake it; it had not done anything to him. Besides, if it wanted shaking, I was the proper person to shake it. I felt much as I should had he started whacking my dog.
He said: "This front wheel wobbles."
I said: "It doesn’t if you don’t wobble it." It didn’t wobble, as a matter of fact – nothing worth calling a wobble.
He said: "This is dangerous; have you got a screw – hammer?"
I ought to have been firm, but I thought that perhaps he really did know something about the business. I went to the tool shed to see what I could find. When I came back he was sitting on the ground with the front wheel between his legs. He was playing with it, twiddling it round between his fingers; the remnant of the machine was lying on the gravel path beside him.
He said: "Something has happened to this front wheel of yours."
"It looks like it, doesn’t it?" I answered. But he was the sort of man that never understands satire.
He said: "It looks to me as if the bearings were all wrong."
I said: "Don’t you trouble about it any more; you will make yourself tired. Let us put it back and get off."
He said: "We may as well see what is the matter with it, now it is out." He talked as though it had dropped out by accident.
Before I could stop him he had unscrewed something somewhere, and out rolled all over the path some dozen or so little balls.
"Catch 'em!" he shouted; "catch 'em! We mustn’t lose any of them." He was quite excited about them.
We grovelled round for half an hour, and found sixteen. He said he hoped we had got them all, because, if not, it would make a serious difference to the machine. He said there was nothing you should be more careful about in taking a bicycle to pieces than seeing you did not lose any of the balls. He explained that you ought to count them as you took them out, and see that exactly the same number went back in each place. I promised, if ever I took a bicycle to pieces I would remember his advice.
I put the balls for safety in my hat, and I put my hat upon the doorstep. It was not a sensible thing to do, I admit. As a matter of fact, it was a silly thing to do. I am not as a rule addle – headed; his influence must have affected me.
He then said that while he was about it he would see to the chain for me, and at once began taking off the gear – case. I did try to persuade him from that. I told him what an experienced friend of mine once said to me solemnly —
"If anything goes wrong with your gear – case, sell the machine and buy a new one; it comes cheaper."
He said: "People talk like that who understand nothing about machines. Nothing is easier than taking off a gear – case."
I had to confess he was right. In less than five minutes he had the gear – case in two pieces, lying on the path, and was grovelling for screws. He said it was always a mystery to him the way screws disappeared.
We were still looking for the screws when Ethelbertha came out. She seemed surprised to find us there; she said she thought we had started hours ago.
He said: "We shan’t be long now. I’m just helping your husband to overhaul this machine of his. It’s a good machine; but they all want going over occasionally."
