"Biklemen," repeated the fat little fellow. "It's a word I invented myself to save time and it signifies gentlemen who ride bicycles. Instead of saying 'good morning, gentlemen who ride bicycles,' I say 'good morning, biklemen, is there anything I can do for you?'" "Well, I should say there was," retorted Bikey. "Just look at my tires, will you? There are twenty-six punctures in the front one and eighteen in the hind one. I should think you'd have better sense than to sprinkle the road with tacks in this way." "Why, what an ungrateful creature you are," cried the landlord of the Tyred Inn, for that was who the pudgy little old fellow was. "If it hadn't been for those tacks I'd like to know where you'd be at this moment. You'd have smashed into that stone wall and busted yourself and your rider all to pieces." "That's so, Bikey," said Jimmieboy. "Those tacks saved our lives." "Of course they did," said the landlord. "And even if you had a right to growl about 'em, you haven't any right to growl at me because the government compels me to keep that part of the road sprinkled with 'em." "Really?" asked Bikey. "Queer law that, isn't it?" "I don't see why you think that," replied the landlord. "Is it a queer law which results in the saving of people's lives?" "No; but the way to save people's lives would be to remove that stone wall," said Bikey. "And that's the thing that makes this place dangerous." "I don't like to be impolite to biklemen," said the landlord, "but I must say that you don't know what you are talking about. Do you suppose I am in business for fun?" "I don't see what that has to do with it," said Bikey, ruefully regarding his tires, which looked for all the world like porous plasters would look if they were sold by the yard. "Well, I'll show you in ten seconds," said the landlord. "Do you see this inn? I presume you do, though there seems to be so little that you see that I have my doubts. Well, this inn is run, not because I think it's a game I'm playing, but because I'm after money. Now, this inn wouldn't earn a cent of money if biklemen didn't stop here. See that?" "Yes," said Bikey. "That's plain enough, but that doesn't account for the tacks or the stone wall." "Yes, it does, too," retorted the landlord. "I ran this inn two years before that stone wall was built, and I paid the government $500 a week for being allowed to do it, but nobody ever stopped. Every bikleman in the universe went coasting by here and never a one stopped in, so I never got a cent and was paying $26,000 a year to the government into the bargain. Of course I complained to the Secretary of the Interior, and he just laughed me off; said it wasn't his fault; that I ought to do something myself to make 'em stop, and that is how I came to build the stone wall. They've got to stop now. See that?" "Yes," said Bikey, "I see. And did you begin to make money?"