"That may be so; but it"s very good business."
He paused and mused, then he murmured low to himself, ""When through an Alpine village pa.s.sed." That"s where the idea of the _Excelsior_ comes in; see? "It goes up Mont Blanc," you said yourself. "Through snow and ice, A cycle with the strange device, Excelsior!""
"If I were you," I said, "I would stick to the name _Manitou_. It"s original, and it"s distinctive."
"Think so? Then chalk it up; the thing"s done. You may not be aware of it, miss, but you are a lady for whose opinion in such matters I hev a high regard. _And_ you understand Europe. I do not. I admit it.
Everything seems to me to be _verboten_ in Germany; and everything else to be _bad form_ in England."
We walked down the steps together. "What a picturesque old town!" I said, looking round me, well pleased. Its beauty appealed to me, for I had fifty pounds in pocket, and I had lunched sumptuously.
"_Old_ town?" he repeated, gazing with a blank stare. "You call this town _old_, do you?"
"Why, of course! Just look at the cathedral! Eight hundred years old, at least!"
He ran his eye down the streets, dissatisfied.
"Well, ef this town is old," he said at last, with a snap of his fingers, "it"s precious little for its age." And he strode away towards the railway station.
"What about the bicycle?" I asked; for it lay, a silent victor, against the railing of the steps, surrounded by a crowd of inquiring Teutons.
He glanced at it carelessly. "Oh, the wheel?" he said. "You may keep it."
He said it so exactly in the tone in which one tells a waiter he may keep the change, that I resented the impertinence. "No, thank you," I answered. "I do not require it."
He gazed at me, open-mouthed. "What? Put my foot in it again?" he interposed. "Not high-toned enough? Eh? Now, I do regret it. No offence meant, miss, nor none need be taken. What I meant to in-sinuate was this: you hev won the big race for me. Folks will notice you and talk about you at Frankfort. Ef you ride a Manitou, that"ll make "em talk the more. A mutual advantage. Benefits you; benefits me. You get the wheel; I get the adver_tize_ment."
I saw that reciprocity was the lodestar of his life. "Very well, Mr.
Hitchc.o.c.k," I said, pocketing my pride, "I"ll accept the machine, and I"ll ride it."
Then a light dawned upon me. I saw eventualities. "Look here," I went on, innocently--recollect, I was a girl just fresh from Girton--"I am thinking of going on very soon to Switzerland. Now, why shouldn"t I do this--try to sell your machines, or, rather, take orders for them, from anybody that admires them? A mutual advantage. Benefits you; benefits me. You sell your wheels; I get----"
He stared at me. "The commission?"
"I don"t know what commission means," I answered, somewhat at sea as to the name; "but I thought it might be worth your while, till the Manitou becomes better known, to pay me, say, ten per cent on all orders I brought you."
His face was one broad smile. "I do admire at you, miss," he cried, standing still to inspect me. "You may not know the meaning of the _word_ commission; but durned ef you haven"t got a hang of the _thing_ itself that would do honour to a Wall Street operator, anyway."
"Then that"s business?" I asked, eagerly; for I beheld vistas.
"Business?" he repeated. "Yes, that"s jest about the size of it--business. Adver_tize_ment, miss, may be the soul of commerce, but Commission"s its body. You go in and win. Ten per cent on every order you send me!"
He insisted on taking my ticket back to Frankfort. "My affair, miss; my affair!" There was no gainsaying him. He was immensely elated. "The biggest thing in cycles since Dunlop tyres," he repeated. "And to-morrow, they"ll give me advertizements gratis in every newspaper!"
Next morning, he came round to call on me at the Abode of Unclaimed Domestic Angels. He was explicit and generous. "Look here, miss," he began; "I didn"t do fair by you when you interviewed me about your agency last evening. I took advantage, _at_ the time, _of_ your youth and inexperience. You suggested 10 per cent _as_ the amount of your commission on sales you might effect; and I jumped at it. That was conduct unworthy _of_ a gentleman. Now, I will not deceive you. The ordinary commission on transactions in wheels is 25 per cent. I am going to sell the Manitou retail at twenty English pounds apiece. You shall hev your 25 per cent on all orders."
"Five pounds for every machine I sell?" I exclaimed, overjoyed.
He nodded. "That"s so."
I was simply amazed at this magnificent prospect. "The cycle trade must be honeycombed with middlemen"s profits!" I cried; for I had my misgivings.
"That"s so," he replied again. "Then jest you take and be a middlewoman."
"But, as a consistent socialist----"
"It is your duty to fleece the capitalist and the consumer. A mutual benefit--triangular this time. I get the order, the public gets the machine, and you get the commission. I am richer, you are richer, and the public is mounted on much the best wheel ever yet invented."
"That sounds plausible," I admitted. "I shall try it on in Switzerland.
I shall run up steep hills whenever I see any likely customers looking on; then I shall stop and ask them the time, as if quite accidentally."
He rubbed his hands. "You take to business like a young duck to the water," he exclaimed, admiringly. "That"s the way to rake "em in! You go up and say to them, "Why not investigate? We defy compet.i.tion. Leave the drudgery of walking uphill beside your cycle! Progress is the order of the day. Use modern methods! This is the age of the telegraph, the telephone, _and_ the typewriter. You kin no longer afford to go on with an antiquated, ante-diluvian, armour-plated wheel. Invest in a Hill-Climber, the last and lightest product of evvolootion. _Is_ it common-sense to buy an old-style, unautomatic, single-geared, inconvertible ten-ton machine, when for the same money or less you can purchase the self-acting Manitou, a priceless gem, as light as a feather, with all the most recent additions and improvements? Be reasonable! Get the best!" That"s the style to fetch "em!"
I laughed, in spite of myself. "Oh, Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k," I burst out, "that"s not _my_ style at all. I shall say, simply "This is a lovely new bicycle. You can see for yourself how it climbs hills. Try it, if you wish. It skims like a swallow. And I get what they call five pounds commission on every one I can sell of them!" I think that way of dealing is much more likely to bring you in orders."
His admiration was undisguised. "Well, I _do_ call you a woman of business, miss," he cried. "You see it at a glance. That"s so. That"s the right kind of thing to rope in the Europeans. Some originality about you. You take "em on their own ground. You"ve got the draw on them, you hev. I like your system. You"ll jest haul in the dollars!"
"I hope so," I said, fervently; for I had evolved in my own mind, oh, such a _lovely_ scheme for Elsie Petheridge"s holidays!
He gazed at me once more. "Ef only I could get hold of a woman of business like you to soar through life with me," he murmured.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HIS OPEN ADMIRATION WAS GETTING QUITE EMBARRa.s.sING.]
I grew interested in my shoes. His open admiration was getting quite embarra.s.sing.
He paused a minute. Then he went on: "Well, what do you say to it?"
"To what?" I asked, amazed.
"To my proposition--my offer."
"I-- I don"t understand," I stammered out bewildered. "The 25 per cent, you mean?"
"No, the de-votion of a lifetime," he answered, looking sideways at me.
"Miss Cayley, when a business man advances a proposition, commercial or otherwise, he advances it because he means it. He asks a prompt reply.
Your time is valuable. So is mine. _Are_ you prepared to consider it?"
"Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k," I said, drawing back, "I think you misunderstand. I think you do not realise----"
"All right, miss," he answered, promptly, though with a disappointed air. "Ef it kin not be managed, it kin not be managed. I understand your European ex-clusiveness. I know your prejudices. But this little episode need not antagonise with the normal course of ordinary business. I respect you, Miss Cayley. You are a lady _of_ intelligence, _of_ initiative, and _of_ high-toned culture. I will wish you good day for the present, without further words; and I shall be happy at any time to receive your orders on the usual commission."
He backed out and was gone. He was so honestly blunt that I really quite liked him.
Next day, I bade a tearless farewell to the Blighted Fraus. When I told those eight phlegmatic souls I was going, they all said "So!" much as they had said "So!" to every previous remark I had been moved to make to them. "So" is capital garnishing: but viewed as a staple of conversation, I find it a trifle vapid, not to say monotonous.
I set out on my wanderings, therefore, to go round the world on my own account and my own Manitou, which last I grew to love in time with a love pa.s.sing the love of Mr. Cyrus. .h.i.tchc.o.c.k. I carried the strict necessary before me in a small waterproof bicycling valise; but I sent on the portmanteau containing my whole estate, real or personal, to some point in advance which I hoped to reach from time to time in a day or two. My first day"s journey was along a pleasant road from Frankfort to Heidelberg, some fifty-four miles in all, skirting the mountains the greater part of the way; the Manitou took the ups and downs so easily that I diverged at intervals, to choose side-paths over the wooded hills. I arrived at Heidelberg as fresh as a daisy, my mount not having turned a hair meanwhile--a favourite expression of cyclists which carries all the more conviction to an impartial mind because of the machine being obviously hairless. Thence I journeyed on by easy stages to Karlsruhe, Baden, Appenweier, and Offenburg; where I set my front wheel resolutely for the Black Forest. It is the prettiest and most picturesque route to Switzerland; and, being also the hilliest, it would afford me, I thought, the best opportunity for showing off the Manitou"s paces, and trying my prentice hand as an amateur cycle-agent.
From the quaint little Black Eagle at Offenburg, however, before I dashed into the Forest, I sent off a letter to Elsie Petheridge, setting forth my lovely scheme for her summer holidays. She was delicate, poor child, and the London winters sorely tried her; I was now a millionaire, with the better part of fifty pounds in pocket, so I felt I could afford to be royal in my hospitality. As I was leaving Frankfort, I had called at a tourist agency and bought a second-cla.s.s circular ticket from London to Lucerne and back-- I made it second-cla.s.s because I am opposed on principle to excessive luxury, and also because it was three guineas cheaper. Even fifty pounds will not last for ever, though I could scarce believe it. (You see, I am not wholly free, after all, from the besetting British vice of prudence.) It was a mighty joy to me to be able to send this ticket to Elsie, at her lodgings in Bayswater, pointing out to her that now the whole mischief was done, and that if she would not come out as soon as her summer vacation began--"twas a point of honour with Elsie to say _vacation_, instead of _holidays_--to join me at Lucerne, and stop with me as my guest at a mountain _pension_, the ticket would be wasted. I love burning my boats; "tis the only safe way for securing prompt action.