The Sketcher.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2280, 29 September 1899, Page 6

The Sketcher.

Some Account of a Prevailing Malady. "John," said my father-in-law as he san by my snuggery table one Octol>er evening putting ait an ancient Brosley clay and meditatively forming wet rings on the nuaihogany with his whisky glass, ".lolirn, I'm sorry 1 csm't congratulate you on your cycling acquaintances." There was a long pause. The rain drummed on -the dark window-pane. Short chill gusts of north wind pursued one another shrieking into every corner and cranny about the old house; and half a regiment of wind demons seenn.Nl to be hanging round the chimney tops, roaring down deliance at the glowing Wallseud below. Outside in the wet autumn night, the whole country lay sodden and draggle-tailed under a weary, week-long deluge ; and every I'.tne and highway simmered spit-deep in si inhering. slimy slush. As was often his wont of an evening, my father-in-law had stepped across in his goloshes for a quiet smoke and talk ; and, rather to his disgust, instead of tindiug a pale but intelligent-looking young man, enthroned in solitary state, and softly practising on the llute, with the music propped up against the whisky bottle, he had discovered the said young man in company of five or six knickerbockered and bemedalled gentlemen, fiali.nl.ly visible through a thick cloud of tobacco smoke ; and all engaged in a white-hot discussion ou some weighty cycling problem of the day. All through the evening lie had steadily pulled at his churchwarden in a sort of ecstasy of silence ; but now that the last of the coterie had disappeared off the front door-step into the dark, and we were once more snugly settled in the great wicker armchairs, I knew that, lie had something 011 his mind, and in silence waited for the trouble to declare itself. " There seems to me," he continued presently, withdrawing his pipe from his mouth, and replacing it several times in a deeply ruminative manner; "there seems to me to be some inexplicable uncanny influence for evil about a cycle, which alters a man completely, body and soul, the moment he takes to it. There's young LarkLn. now. who used to l>e as sweetly dispositioned and well-informed a youth as you could encounter in a day's journey. Directly you persuaded him to buy that absurd little toast-rack of a thing, what happened to him 'i Why. from the moment, he discovered that Nature had blessed him with rather a stronger pair of legs than his neighbours, lie seems to have forgotten everything he has ever learnt since he left his cradle, and to think and dream of nothing else but tires, and speed gears, and records, and other such inanities of the wheel-craze. Moreover, he appears at all hours in a greasy suit of gray flannel, and a positively alarming scarcity of underlinen : and. from being a model of urbanity and consideration for other people's feelings, he now thinks nothing of tearing through a crowded street doubled up like a fried whiting, and howling at one like a demon if one happens to cross the road a couple of hundred yards or so ahead of liiui. Then again there's your erstwhile sedate and respectable middleaged friend Ilobson. who sat over there in the corner smoking that offensive shag. He exhibits one of the worst forms of what I may call Cyclomania pestifera. Now. why can't he see that for a man of his years and responsible position to don knickerbockers and a short jacket and to go meandering down the High-street unblusliingly in the full light of day, clanging away at that ridiculous bell like a mad muffin man. is really aiming a crushing blow at the very foundations of society? In heaven's name why doesn't he keep all that checkered infamy somewhere out in the country, and ait any rate stick to his black coat and his respectability until he is clear of the town?"

My faither-in-lfliw drew a long breath, and lapsed momentarily into silence. For a while he lay back in his chair gazing liiedrtatiively ait the-exiling, and gently wafting from his open mouth little undulating litngs of blue smoke, which rose, see-sawing into space, until they came to an untimely end against the electrolier. From time to time lie looked round furtively. a,s if he half expected from me an explosive defence of my pet pastime and its adherents : but. emulating the example of the Tar-Baby. I kept on saying nothing. Presently lie wanned to his subject once more. and. placing his fat linger tijvs together over his domelike waistcoat, proceeded with his indictment. "Then again, there's Biddleston. who sat clinking that huge gold attendance medal of his in such a disgustingly ostentatious manner. Oould mind of man conceive a more degraded spectacle than is presented by this creature, once a most decorous and solier-souled citizen. when he begins those amazing lotions of the distances he has ridden and miraculous limes he has accomplished V I suppose there never was a more scrupulously veracious man in his ordinary line and work than poor Biddleston. 1 sincerely believe he would rather die than wilfully pervert the truth a hair's breadth in any other respect between earth and heaven. But the moment lie gets astride that extraordinary-looking machine of his I think I heard you do scribe it as a cross-frame solid, what* ever that may lie he becomes dead I" all sense of shame, and invents, ap pa fen fly without any shock or ineoii venieiieoto himself, the most appallingly improbable accounts of distances lie has annihilated. Again, what on earth can old Mr. Siagleview be thinking of to let his pretty daughters discard what is a woman's chief glory, her drapery, and actually appear in the public street in male inexpressibles The bare thought proved too much for my father in law "s old world sitscepti bilities : for here lie broke down colli pletely. and it was not until the " < >ld Tre,.mills" bottle had once more done double duty that speech returned to him. " Think of the sacrilege of it. John." he continued hoarsely, and under hibreatli : " for a thousand years and more \\ oma ii has done her horse tiding on a side-saddle, knowing that her dignitv and power lav enshrined in her flowing robes: and wisely enduring any incon voliieiiee rather' than dispense with liii-ni. and so cast herself voluntarily from the pinnacle where adorning man placed her. And now. after all these cent uric- . if Self saeritiee ill the e.a Use ol all that is beautiful and graceful, sinhas fallen utterly. A ml w hat is it t ha: lias worked her downfall Win tic insidious. soul dest toy ing inll u>■ 11• e whii-li surrounds your pursuit of cycling blinding everyboih old and young t. what, since Adam delved and F\e spin, [has been considered proper am! seemlv .

and literally making pernicious fools of ycm all !" The old gentleman got up hastily, and dipping both hands deep into his trousers pockets strode up and down in lofty indignation. But his naturally calm and judicious temperament soon reasserting itself, he presently came 10 a permanent halt on the lu-arthrug. Then, gathering one voluminous coattail under each arm and eonteiupl'alively exposing his hindennost broadcloth to the cheery blaze, he pulled himself logetherand came once more to the change. " If, John." he said, eyeing me in a solemn and critical manner, "if you could, by any stretch of your sane judgment as a man and a husband, approve in even a small degree of the abandonment of the petticoats in a nice-looking girl like Cecilia Singleview, what, 1 ask you, what can the most bigoted, blinded wheel-grinder in the universe say in defence of such an apparition as 1 saw with my own eyes only a short time ago? It was a female—a female, John, 1 cannot get myself to say woman. It was gaunt and meagie of habit, and wore gray spectacles under a blue Tamo' Shanter. The knickerbockers were of the scantiest dimensions. and the tunic wholly innocent of rails, and the whole dreadful affair was fashioned out of sandy-coloured tweed, of a pattern which would have tilled even a golfer with dismay. And on the same machine with it rode a brazen male thing, without even a blusli, or the slightest indication of any worthier feeling in the matter than a general all-round sort of smug complacency ! "Depend upon it," my boy, "he con eluded as he packed himself leisurely into his overcoat and mutlier preparatory to setting forth into the dark and the rain, " depend upon it. all this constitutes a greater and graver danger to society than people ever dream of, and if men cannot ride bicycles without an instant and complete subversion of their entire moral and mental natures, or women take to wheeling unless tlicy render themselves a laughing-stock to the whole town, there will remain only one course open to the few sane folk still paying the country's taxes. We shall have to join forces and do something desperate, perhaps form a society for the aliolition of bicycling by Act of Parliament, or an anti-wheeling league, or some such contrivance, and try to cure the poor sick cyclist ot his disorder. And if we can't cure him. why we'll He shot out a bloodthirsty look from beneath his umbrella, then faded away into the dismal night.—" Pall Mall Gazette."