Then I turned my flying wheels up into the Black Forest, growing weary of my loneliness--for it is not all jam to ride by oneself in Germany--and longing for Elsie to come out and join me. I loved to think how her dear pale cheeks would gain colour and tone on the hills about the Brunig, where, for business reasons (so I said to myself with the conscious pride of the commission agent), I proposed to pa.s.s the greater part of the summer.

From Offenburg to Hornberg the road makes a good stiff climb of twenty-seven miles, and some 1200 English feet in alt.i.tude, with a fair number of minor undulations on the way to diversify it. I will not describe the route, though it is one of the most beautiful I have ever travelled--rocky hills, ruined castles, huge, straight-stemmed pines that clamber up green slopes, or halt in sombre line against steeps of broken crag; the reality surpa.s.ses my poor powers of description. And the people I pa.s.sed on the road were almost as quaint and picturesque in their way as the hills and the villages--the men in red-lined jackets; the women in black petticoats, short-waisted green bodices, and broad-brimmed straw hats with black-and-crimson pompons. But on the steepest gradient, just before reaching Hornberg, I got my first nibble--strange to say, from two German students; they wore Heidelberg caps, and were toiling up the incline with short, broken wind; I put on a spurt with the Manitou, and pa.s.sed them easily. I did it just at first in pure wantonness of health and strength; but the moment I was clear of them, it occurred to the business half of me that here was a good chance of taking an order. Filled with this bright idea, I dismounted near the summit, and pretended to be engaged in lubricating my bearings; though as a matter of fact the Manitou runs in a bath of oil, self-feeding, and needs no looking after. Presently, my two Heidelbergers straggled up--hot, dusty, panting. Woman-like, I pretended to take no notice. One of them drew near and cast an eye on the Manitou.

'That's a new machine, Fraulein,' he said, at last, with more politeness than I expected.

'It is,' I answered, casually; 'the latest model. Climbs hills like no other.' And I feigned to mount and glide off towards Hornberg.

'Stop a moment, pray, Fraulein,' my prospective buyer called out. 'Here, Heinrich, I wish you this new so excellent mountain-climbing machine, without chain propelled, more fully to investigate.'

'I am going on to Hornberg,' I said, with mixed feminine guile and commercial strategy; 'still, if your friend wishes to look----'

[Ill.u.s.tration: MINUTE INSPECTION.]

They both jostled round it, with _achs_ innumerable, and, after minute inspection, p.r.o.nounced its principle _wunderschon_. 'Might I essay it?'

Heinrich asked.

'Oh, by all means,' I answered. He paced it down hill a few yards; then skimmed up again.

'It is a bird!' he cried to his friend, with many guttural interjections. 'Like the eagle's flight, so soars it. Come, try the thing, Ludwig!'

'You permit, Fraulein?'

I nodded. They both mounted it several times. It behaved like a beauty.

Then one of them asked, 'And where can man of this new so remarkable machine nearest by purchase himself make possessor?'

'I am the Sole Agent,' I burst out, with swelling dignity. 'If you will give me your orders, with cash in hand for the amount, I will send the cycle, carriage paid, to any address you desire in Germany.'

'You!' they exclaimed, incredulously. 'The Fraulein is pleased to be humorous!'

'Oh, very well,' I answered, vaulting into the saddle; 'If you choose to doubt my word----' I waved one careless hand and coasted off.

'Good-morning, meine Herren.'

They lumbered after me on their ramshackled traction-engines. 'Pardon, Fraulein! Do not thus go away! Oblige us at least with the name and address of the maker.'

I perpended--like the Herr Over-Superintendent at Frankfort. 'Look here,' I said at last, telling the truth with frankness, 'I get 25 per cent on all bicycles I sell. I am, as I say, the maker's Sole Agent. If you order through me, I touch my profit; if otherwise, I do not. Still, since you seem to be gentlemen,' they bowed and swelled visibly, 'I will give you the address of the firm, trusting to your honour to mention my name'--I handed them a card--'if you decide on ordering. The price of the palfrey is 400 marks. It is worth every pfennig of it.' And before they could say more, I had spurred my steed and swept off at full speed round a curve of the highway.

I pencilled a note to my American that night from Hornberg, detailing the circ.u.mstance; but I am sorry to say, for the discredit of humanity, that when those two students wrote the same evening from their inn in the village to order Manitous, they did _not_ mention my name, doubtless under the misconception that by suppressing it they would save my commission. However, it gives me pleasure to add _per contra_ (as we say in business) that when I arrived at Lucerne a week or so later I found a letter, _poste restante_, from Mr. Cyrus. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k, inclosing an English ten-pound note. He wrote that he had received two orders for Manitous from Hornberg; and 'feeling considerable confidence that these must necessarily originate' from my German students, he had the pleasure of forwarding me what he hoped would be the first of many similar commissions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FELT A PERFECT LITTLE HYPOCRITE.]

I will not describe my further adventures on the still steeper mountain road from Hornberg to Triberg and St. Georgen--how I got bites on the way from an English curate, an Austrian hussar, and two unprotected American ladies; nor how I angled for them all by riding my machine up impossible hills, and then reclining gracefully to eat my lunch (three times in one day) on mossy banks at the summit. I felt a perfect little hypocrite. But Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k had remarked that business is business; and I will only add (in confirmation of his view) that by the time I reached Lucerne, I had sown the good seed in fifteen separate human souls, no less than four of which brought forth fruit in orders for Manitous before the end of the season.

I had now so little fear what the morrow might bring forth that I settled down in a comfortable hotel at Lucerne till Elsie's holidays began; and amused myself meanwhile by picking out the hilliest roads I could find in the neighbourhood, in order to display my steel steed's possibilities to the best advantage.

By the end of July, Elsie joined me. She was half-angry at first that I should have forced the ticket and my hospitality upon her.

'Nonsense, dear,' I said, smoothing her hair, for her pale face quite frightened me. 'What is the good of a friend if she will not allow you to do her little favours?'

'But, Brownie, you said you wouldn't stop and be dependent upon _me_ one day longer than was necessary in London.'

'That was different,' I cried. 'That was Me! This is You! I am a great, strong, healthy thing, fit to fight the battle of life and take care of myself; you, Elsie, are one of those fragile little flowers which 'tis everybody's duty to protect and to care for.'

She would have protested more; but I stifled her mouth with kisses.

Indeed, for nothing did I rejoice in my prosperity so much as for the chance it gave me of helping poor dear overworked, overwrought Elsie.

We took up our quarters thenceforth at a high-perched little guest-house near the top of the Brunig. It was bracing for Elsie; and it lay close to a tourist track where I could spread my snares and exhibit the Manitou in its true colours to many pa.s.sing visitors. Elsie tried it, and found she could ride on it with ease. She wished she had one of her own. A bright idea struck me. In fear and trembling, I wrote, suggesting to Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k that I had a girl friend from England stopping with me in Switzerland, and that two Manitous would surely be better than one as an adver_tize_ment. I confess I stood aghast at my own cheek; but my hand, I fear, was rapidly growing 'subdued to that it worked in.' Anyhow I sent the letter off, and waited developments.

By return of post came an answer from my American.

'DEAR MISS--By rail herewith please receive one lady's No. 4 automatic quadruple-geared self-feeding Manitou, as per your esteemed favour of July 27th, for which I desire to thank you. The more I see of your way of doing business, the more I do admire at you. This is an elegant poster! Two high-toned English ladies, mounted on Manitous, careering up the Alps, represent to both of us quite a mint of money. The mutual benefit, to me, to you, and to the other lady, ought to be simply incalculable. I shall be pleased at any time to hear of any further developments of your very remarkable advertising skill, and I am obliged to you for this brilliant suggestion you have been good enough to make to me.--Respectfully,

'CYRUS W. HITCHc.o.c.k.'

'What? Am I to have it for nothing, Brownie?' Elsie exclaimed, bewildered, when I read the letter to her.

I a.s.sumed the airs of a woman of the world. 'Why, certainly, my dear,' I answered, as if I always expected to find bicycles showered upon me.

'It's a mutual arrangement. Benefits him; benefits you. Reciprocity is the groundwork of business. _He_ gets the advertis.e.m.e.nt; _you_ get the amus.e.m.e.nt. It's a form of handbill. Like the ladies who exhibit their back hair, don't you know, in that window in Regent Street.'

Thus inexpensively mounted, we scoured the country together, up the steepest hills between Stanzstadt and Meiringen. We had lots of nibbles.

One lady in particular often stopped to look on and admire the Manitou.

She was a nice-looking widow of forty-five, very fresh and round-faced; a Mrs. Evelegh, we soon found out, who owned a charming _chalet_ on the hills above Lungern. She spoke to us more than once: 'What a perfect dear of a machine!' she cried. 'I wonder if I dare try it!'

'Can you cycle?' I asked.

'I could once,' she answered. 'I was awfully fond of it. But Dr.

Fortescue-Langley won't let me any longer.'

'Try it!' I said dismounting. She got up and rode. 'Oh, isn't it just lovely!' she cried ecstatically.

'Buy one!' I put in. 'They're as smooth as silk; they cost only twenty pounds; and, on every machine I sell, I get five pounds commission.'

'I should love to,' she answered; 'but Dr. Fortescue-Langley----'

'Who is he?' I asked. 'I don't believe in drug-drenchers.'

She looked quite shocked. 'Oh, he's not that kind, you know,' she put in, breathlessly. 'He's the celebrated esoteric faith-healer. He won't let me move far away from Lungern, though I'm longing to be off to England again for the summer. My boy's at Portsmouth.'

'Then, why don't you disobey him?'

Her face was a study. 'I daren't,' she answered in an awe-struck voice.

'He comes here every summer; and he does me _so_ much good, you know. He diagnoses my inner self. He treats me psychically. When my inner self goes wrong, my bangle turns dusky.' She held up her right hand with an Indian silver bangle on it; and sure enough, it was tarnished with a very thin black deposit. 'My soul is ailing now,' she said in a comically serious voice. 'But it is seldom so in Switzerland. The moment I land in England the bangle turns black and remains black till I get back to Lucerne again.'

When she had gone, I said to Elsie, 'That _is_ odd about the bangle.

State of health might affect it, I suppose. Though it looks to me like a surface deposit of sulphide.' I knew nothing of chemistry, I admit; but I had sometimes messed about in the laboratory at college with some of the other girls; and I remembered now that sulphide of silver was a blackish-looking body, like the film on the bangle.

However, at the time I thought no more about it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE INVITED ELSIE AND MYSELF TO STOP WITH HER.]