A priceless excerpt from Jerome K Jerome's 1900 novel Three Men on the Bummel:
He said: "Have you overhauled it?"I said: "I have not, nor is anyone else going to overhaul it. Thething is now in working order, and it is going to remain in workingorder till we start."I have had experience of this "overhauling." There was a man atFolkestone; I used to meet him on the Lees. He proposed oneevening we should go for a long bicycle ride together on thefollowing day, and I agreed. I got up early, for me; I made aneffort, and was pleased with myself. He came half an hour late: Iwas waiting for him in the garden.
It was a lovely day. He said:-"That's a good-looking machine of yours. How does it run?""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 itviolently.I said: "Don't do that; you'll hurt it."I did not see why he should shake it; it had not done anything tohim. Besides, if it wanted shaking, I was the proper person toshake 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, asa 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 didknow something about the business. I went to the tool shed to seewhat I could find. When I came back he was sitting on the groundwith the front wheel between his legs. He was playing with it,twiddling it round between his fingers; the remnant of the machinewas 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 ofman 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 makeyourself tired. Let us put it back and get off."He said: "We may as well see what is the matter with it, now it isout." He talked as though it had dropped out by accident.Before I could stop him he had unscrewed something somewhere, andout 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 hehoped we had got them all, because, if not, it would make a seriousdifference to the machine. He said there was nothing you should bemore careful about in taking a bicycle to pieces than seeing youdid not lose any of the balls. He explained that you ought tocount them as you took them out, and see that exactly the samenumber went back in each place. I promised, if ever I took abicycle to pieces I would remember his advice.I put the balls for safety in my hat, and I put my hat upon thedoorstep. It was not a sensible thing to do, I admit. As a matterof 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 chainfor me, and at once began taking off the gear-case. I did try topersuade him from that. I told him what an experienced friend ofmine once said to me solemnly:-"If anything goes wrong with your gear-case, sell the machine andbuy a new one; it comes cheaper."He said: "People talk like that who understand nothing aboutmachines. Nothing is easier than taking off a gear-case."I had to confess he was right. In less than five minutes he hadthe gear-case in two pieces, lying on the path, and was grovellingfor screws. He said it was always a mystery to him the way screwsdisappeared.We were still looking for the screws when Ethelbertha came out.She seemed surprised to find us there; she said she thought we hadstarted hours ago.He said: "We shan't be long now. I'm just helping your husband tooverhaul this machine of his. It's a good machine; but they allwant going over occasionally."Ethelbertha said: "If you want to wash yourselves when you havedone you might go into the back kitchen, if you don't mind; thegirls have just finished the bedrooms."She told me that if she met Kate they would probably go for a sail;but that in any case she would be back to lunch. I would havegiven a sovereign to be going with her. I was getting heartilysick of standing about watching this fool breaking up my bicycle.Common sense continued to whisper to me: "Stop him, before he doesany more mischief. You have a right to protect your own propertyfrom the ravages of a lunatic. Take him by the scruff of the neck,and kick him out of the gate!"But I am weak when it comes to hurting other people's feelings, andI let him muddle on.He gave up looking for the rest of the screws. He said screws hada knack of turning up when you least expected them; and that now hewould see to the chain. He tightened it till it would not move;next he loosened it until it was twice as loose as it was before.Then he said we had better think about getting the front wheel backinto its place again.I held the fork open, and he worried with the wheel. At the end often minutes I suggested he should hold the forks, and that I shouldhandle the wheel; and we changed places. At the end of his firstminute he dropped the machine, and took a short walk round thecroquet lawn, with his hands pressed together between his thighs.He explained as he walked that the thing to be careful about was toavoid getting your fingers pinched between the forks and the spokesof the wheel. I replied I was convinced, from my own experience,that there was much truth in what he said. He wrapped himself upin a couple of dusters, and we commenced again. At length we didget the thing into position; and the moment it was in position heburst out laughing.I said: "What's the joke?"He said: "Well, I am an ass!"It was the first thing he had said that made me respect him. Iasked him what had led him to the discovery.He said: "We've forgotten the balls!"I looked for my hat; it was lying topsy-turvy in the middle of thepath, and Ethelbertha's favourite hound was swallowing the balls asfast as he could pick them up."He will kill himself," said Ebbson--I have never met him sincethat day, thank the Lord; but I think his name was Ebbson--"theyare solid steel."I said: "I am not troubling about the dog. He has had a bootlaceand a packet of needles already this week. Nature's the bestguide; puppies seem to require this kind of stimulant. What I amthinking about is my bicycle."He was of a cheerful disposition. He said: "Well, we must putback all we can find, and trust to Providence."We found eleven. We fixed six on one side and five on the other,and half an hour later the wheel was in its place again. It needhardly be added that it really did wobble now; a child might havenoticed it. Ebbson said it would do for the present. He appearedto be getting a bit tired himself. If I had let him, he would, Ibelieve, at this point have gone home. I was determined now,however, that he should stop and finish; I had abandoned allthoughts of a ride. My pride in the machine he had killed. Myonly interest lay now in seeing him scratch and bump and pinchhimself. I revived his drooping spirits with a glass of beer andsome judicious praise. I said:"Watching you do this is of real use to me. It is not only yourskill and dexterity that fascinates me, it is your cheeryconfidence in yourself, your inexplicable hopefulness, that does megood."Thus encouraged, he set to work to refix the gear-case. He stoodthe bicycle against the house, and worked from the off side. Thenhe stood it against a tree, and worked from the near side. Then Iheld it for him, while he lay on the ground with his head betweenthe wheels, and worked at it from below, and dropped oil uponhimself. Then he took it away from me, and doubled himself acrossit like a pack-saddle, till he lost his balance and slid over on tohis head. Three times he said:"Thank Heaven, that's right at last!"And twice he said:"No, I'm damned if it is after all!"What he said the third time I try to forget.Then he lost his temper and tried bullying the thing. The bicycle,I was glad to see, showed spirit; and the subsequent proceedingsdegenerated into little else than a rough-and-tumble fight betweenhim and the machine. One moment the bicycle would be on the gravelpath, and he on top of it; the next, the position would bereversed--he on the gravel path, the bicycle on him. Now he wouldbe standing flushed with victory, the bicycle firmly fixed betweenhis legs. But his triumph would be short-lived. By a sudden,quick movement it would free itself, and, turning upon him, hit himsharply over the head with one of its handles.At a quarter to one, dirty and dishevelled, cut and breeding, hesaid: "I think that will do;" and rose and wiped his brow.The bicycle looked as if it also had had enough of it. Which hadreceived most punishment it would have been difficult to say. Itook him into the back kitchen, where, so far as was possiblewithout soda and proper tools, he cleaned himself, and sent himhome.The bicycle I put into a cab and took round to the nearestrepairing shop. The foreman of the works came up and looked at it."What do you want me to do with that?" said he."I want you," I said, "so far as is possible, to restore it.""It's a bit far gone," said he; "but I'll do my best."He did his best, which came to two pounds ten. But it was neverthe same machine again; and at the end of the season I left it inan agent's hands to sell. I wished to deceive nobody; I instructedthe man to advertise it as a last year's machine. The agentadvised me not to mention any date. He said:"In this business it isn't a question of what is true and whatisn't; it's a question of what you can get people to believe. Now,between you and me, it don't look like a last year's machine; sofar as looks are concerned, it might be a ten-year old. We'll saynothing about date; we'll just get what we can."I left the matter to him, and he got me five pounds, which he saidwas more than he had expected.There are two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can"overhaul" it, or you can ride it. On the whole, I am not surethat a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have thebest of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and thewind; the state of the roads troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil-can, and something to sit downupon, and he is happy for the day. He has to put up with certaindisadvantages, of course; there is no joy without alloy. Hehimself always looks like a tinker, and his machine always suggeststhe idea that, having stolen it, he has tried to disguise it; butas he rarely gets beyond the first milestone with it, this,perhaps, does not much matter. The mistake some people make is inthinking they can get both forms of sport out of the same machine.This is impossible; no machine will stand the double strain. Youmust make up your mind whether you are going to be an "overhauler"or a rider. Personally, I prefer to ride, therefore I take care tohave near me nothing that can tempt me to overhaul. When anythinghappens to my machine I wheel it to the nearest repairing shop. IfI am too far from the town or village to walk, I sit by theroadside and wait till a cart comes along. My chief danger, Ialways find, is from the wandering overhauler. The sight of abroken-down machine is to the overhauler as a wayside corpse to acrow; he swoops down upon it with a friendly yell of triumph. Atfirst I used to try politeness. I would say:"It is nothing; don't you trouble. You ride on, and enjoyyourself, I beg it of you as a favour; please go away."Experience has taught me, however, that courtesy is of no use insuch an extremity. Now I say:"You go away and leave the thing alone, or I will knock your sillyhead off."And if you look determined, and have a good stout cudgel in yourhand, you can generally drive him off.
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