The professional Company Promoter we have had with us ever since Limited Liability brought him into being, and bitter experience during a generation and a half has enabled the public to at last gain a just view of him and his methods; but the public, at that time, still looked upon a nobleman as, almost of necessity, a man of honour. The revelations that followed this sudden crash dispelled that fond belief, and poisoned confidence at its very spring-head. The Society “boom” had already ended, and the bursting of the financial bubble left the once flourishing industry disorganised. Ever since that unhappy year of 1898 Coventry has witnessed a melancholy succession of failures, and has seen factory after factory closed. Only recently has cycle manufacturing begun to recover from that staggering blow. Yet, apart from such considerations as the waxing and waning fortunes of financiers, or of manufacturers and their hirelings among professional racing cyclists, cycling as a pastime has been steadily progressive. Where one person rode a “boneshaker,” twenty bestrode the high bicycle; and, nowadays, for every twenty who perched on the perilous eminence of the old “ordinary,” two hundred are found upon the modern cycle. The industry is thus endowed with elasticity and strong recuperative powers, so that in this saner period Coventry is doing a great deal more than merely holding its own, even though many other towns have secured a share in the business of cycle production. Here, then, for the present, ends Coventry’s romance. There be those who look forward to a new and stirring chapter of it, in a wished-for manufacture of motor-cars; but the future lies on the knees of the gods, to order as they will. XLIV