Oh! the hardest of hearts some compassion must feel For that modern Ixion, the Man on the Wheel! See him scouring the roads on his spindly-spoked spider, Dust-hid till you scarce tell the "bike" from its rider; His abdomen shrunken, his shoulders up-humped, With the gaping parched lips of one awfully pumped. _Could_ a camel condemned to the treadmill look worse? Sure those lips, could he close them, would shape to a curse On his horrible doom! As I gaze and stand by, With a pang at my heart, and a tear in my eye, I think of Ixion, the Wandering Jew, That Cork-leggèd Dutchman--the Flying One, too, And other poor victims of pitiless speed; And I own, while _their_ cases were frightful indeed, The Bicyclist's fate is the worser by far. Poor soul!!! The small "pub," and a "pull" at the "bar," Appear your best comfort. Imagine the cheer Of a slave of the "bike" whose sole solace is beer! You can't see the prospect; your eyes are cast down Like BUNYAN'S _Muck-raker_; your brows in a frown Of purposeless effort are woefully knit; Of Nature's best charms you perceive not a bit. The hedge your horizon, the long, dusty road Is your sole point of sight. Wretched victim, what goad Of Fate, or sheer folly, thus urges you on? Old torments--like poor Io's gadfly--are gone, And yet, like Orestes, the Fury-whipped, you Wheel on, as some comet wheels on through the blue In billion-leagued cycles less dreary than is The cycle on which round the wide world you whiz! Eh? _Cutting a record?_ You _like_ it? The goose!!! A task without pleasure, a toil without use! Poor soul! You are worse than Ixion, I feel, For _he_ was not tied _by himself_ to the wheel! * * * * * [Illustration: CONJUGAL EGOTISM. "WHAT A STUPID PAPER THIS IS, ROBERT! NOT A WORD ABOUT _YOU_ IN IT!"] * * * * * The Plaint of the Unwilling Peer. From my M.P.'s seat I--oh, the pity!--must move. I am one of Rank's sorrowful heirs; For the Commons Fate bids me dissemble my love, But _why_ did she kick me upstairs? * * * * * ON TICK.--The Modern Novel is a blend of the Erotic, the Neurotic, and the Tommy-rotic. * * * * * WHERE TO GO.