The cyclist of thirty-odd years ago--only he was a “bicyclist” then--sprang lightly off his giraffe-like steed of steel, and, leaning it against the white-washed wall, called for food and drink. The landlady, a smiling, simple, motherly woman, in answer to his inquiry, told him that she and her family were just sitting down to dinner, and he could have some of it, if he wished. No need to tell him what it was: for there was a scent of hot roast beef which seemed to him, who had breakfasted light and early, the most desirable thing on earth for a hungry man. The landlady was for clearing the table in the sacred parlour and placing his dinner there, but our early bicyclist was a man of the world--a kind of secular St. Paul, “all things to all men”--and he suggested that, if she didn’t mind, and it was no intrusion, he would as soon have dinner with the family. “Well, sir,” said she, “you’re very welcome, I’m sure,” and so he sat him down in company with two fresh-coloured daughters in neat print dresses, and a silent, but not unamiable, son in corduroys and an ancient jacket. That was a memorable dinner. There was good ale, in its native pewter, and the roast beef was followed by a strange but delightful dish--whortleberry tart--and that by a very Daniel Lambert of a cheese, of majestic proportions and mellow taste. The talk at table was of crops and the likelihood of the squire coming back to live in the long-deserted neighbouring mansion. When he rose to go, and asked what he owed, the landlady, with much diffidence, “for you see, sir, we ain’t used to seeing many strangers,” thought perhaps tenpence would not be too much. That early tourist paid the modest sum with enthusiasm. Preparing to mount his high bicycle again, the whole family must needs come to see him off. They had never before set eyes upon such a contrivance, and wondered how it could be kept upright. “Come thirty miles on it to-day!” exclaimed the landlady: “well, I’m sure! You’ll never catch me on one of ’em.” The bicyclist glanced whimsically at the stout, middle-aged matron, and suppressed a smile at the thought. The next season saw that early wheelman upon the road again. He was now not the only one who straddled across the top of some fifty inches of wheel, and, as the novelty of such things had worn off, the cottagers no longer rushed to doors and windows to gaze after him. Perhaps he did not mind that so very much.