But the Board of Education, which would wrangle doggedly for three weeks about a charge of sixpence in travelling expenses, is both considerate and generous in greater matters. It was, they said, convenient to them that changes should be made at the end of the summer holidays, and if I liked to go at the end of September, they would give me “leave of absence” with full pay for the remaining two months. I gratefully accepted this really handsome offer: bought a new bicycle with the latest improvements to carry my tottering limbs, and went off to the Isle of Man to prove it. On my previous visits to the island I had relied on trains and carriages, and had found some parts difficult of access. With a bicycle exploration is easy. There are rudimentary railways, which put one down at convenient spots, and thence there are good roads to nearly all the schools. It is advisable to make the journey agree with the wind, if possible, for the breeze is often fresh; but, with so much caution, there is unbounded delight. Two journeys stand out in my memory: one in the wild flat country to the north of the island, from sea to sea, and finally over T. E. Brown’s Ballaugh Curragh: the other from Peel over the shoulder of I forget what hill, and then with free running wheel for miles down a smooth road to Port Erin. It was June, and I was only sixty-four. Here let me record an event which certainly does not belong to the island, but may be conveniently hidden away here. I had been cycling, and inspecting, and cycling again all day, and I was weary as I got nearer home. There was a long stretch of smooth footpath, and no one in sight: the prospect of relief from “the ’ammer, ’ammer of the ’ard ’igh road” tempted me, and I strayed from the macadamised road of virtue to the cinder path of illegality. Suddenly a policeman shot out from a side lane and blocked my path. He demanded my name, and wanted to know whether the high road was not a good high road. I praised his high road fulsomely, but I went on to point out that I had been out all day, riding twenty miles _on H.M. Service_, and that I was wearied in doing good works. And I put it to him whether he did not think that members of the Civil Service, _like himself and me_, were entitled to some little indulgence. He was much moved, but not more than an official should be moved. He could not admit the justice of my plea, but he would “name it to the sergeant.” I heard no more of it, and I asked no questions.