Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy — John Shaqi
Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of JimmieboyBangs, John Kendrick
General
Bikey the Skicycle and Other Tales of Jimmieboy
Bangs, John Kendrick
Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories, American; Fantasy literature; Short stories, American
"Nonsense," said Bikey. "Impossible. I haven't any head."
"H'm!" returned Dr. Pump, scratching his chin. "Very true. In making my
diagnosis I had failed to observe the fact that you are an ordinary
brainless wheel. Let me look at your tires."
Bikey held them out.
"Do you prefer homeopathic or allopathic treatment?" asked Dr. Pump. "We
are broadminded here and give our patients their choice."
"What difference does it make in the bill?" asked Bikey.
"None," said Dr. Pump, grandly. "It is merely a difference in treatment.
If you wish homeopathic treatment we will cure your tires, which seem to
be punctured, with a porous plaster, since like cures like under that
system. If, on the other hand, you are an allopath, we will pump you
full of rubber."
"I think I prefer what they call absent treatment," said Bikey, meekly.
"Can't you cure me over the telephone? I'm a Christian Scientist."
They had never heard of this at Saturn, so Bikey was compelled to submit
to one of the two other courses of treatment, and he wisely chose the
porous plaster to cure his puncture, since that required merely an
external application, and did not involve his swallowing anything which
might later have affected his general health.
Meanwhile poor Jimmieboy was locked up in the violent ward. It was a
long low-ceiled room filled with little cots, and the lad found no
comfort in the discovery that there were plenty more patients in the
room.
"Why, the room's full, isn't it?" he said, as he entered.
"Yes," replied the bicycle attendant, who had shown him in. "In fact,
everybody who comes to this house ends up here. Somehow or other, nobody
likes the landlord's food, and nobody ever has money enough along to pay
the fine. It is curious how little money bicyclists take along with
them when they are out for a ride. In all my experience I haven't
encountered one with more than a thousand dollars in his pocket."
"How long does one have to stay here?" asked Jimmieboy.
"Until one likes the food," said the attendant. "So far nobody has ever
got out, so I can't say how long they stay in years."
Again the boy's heart sank, and he crawled into his cot, wretched in
spirit and wholly unhappy.
"I've given you a bed by the window," said the attendant, "because the
air is fresher there. The landlord says you are the freshest boy he ever
met, and we have arranged the air accordingly. I wouldn't try to escape
if I were you, because the window looks out on the very edge of the ring
of Saturn, and it's a jump of about 90,000,000 miles to anything solid.
The jump is easy, but the solid at the other end is very, very hard."
Jimmieboy looked out of the window, and immediately drew back, appalled,
for there was nothing but unfathomable space above, below, or beyond
him, and he gave himself up to despair.
But the boy had really reckoned without his friend Bikey, who was as
stanch and true as ever, as Jimmieboy was soon to find out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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