The Affair of the Avalanche Bicycle and Tyre, Co., Ltd. | Page 3

this evening and see our man training --
awfully interesting, I can tell you, with all the pacing machinery and
that. Wil1 you come?"
Dorrington expressed himself delighted, and suggested that Stedman
should dine with him before going to the track. Stedman, for his part,
charmed with his new acquaintance -- as everybody was at a first
meeting with Dorrington -- assented gladly.
At that moment the door of Stedman's room was pushed open and a
well-dressed, middle-aged man, with a shaven, flabby face, appeared.
"I beg pardon," he said, "I thought you were alone. I've just ripped my
finger against the handle of my brougham door as I came in -- the
screw sticks out. Have you a piece of sticking plaster?" He extended a
bleeding finger as he spoke. Stedman looked doubtfully at his desk.
"Here is some court plaster," Dorrington exclaimed, producing his
pocket-book. "I always carry it -- it's handier than ordinary sticking
plaster. How much do you want?"
"Thanks -- an inch or so."
"This is Mr. Dorrington, of Messrs. Dorrington & Hicks, Mr.
Mallows," Stedman said. "Our managing director, Mr. Paul Mallows,
Mr. Dorrington."
Dorrington was delighted to make Mr. Mallows's acquaintance, and he

busied himself with a careful strapping of the damaged finger. Mr.
Mallows had the large frame of a man of strong build who has had
much hard bodily work, but there hung about it the heavier, softer flesh
that told of a later period of ease and sloth. "Ah, Mr. Mallows,"
Stedman said, "the bicycle's the safest thing, after all! Dangerous things
these broughams!"
"Ah, you younger men," Mr. Mallows replied, with a slow and rounded
enunciation, "you younger men can afford to be active! We elders ----"
"Can afford a brougham," Dorrington added, before the managing
director began the next word. "Just so -- and the bicycle does it all;
wonderful thing the bicycle!"
Dorrington had not misjudged his man, and the oblique reference to his
wealth flattered Mr. Hallows. Dorrington went once more through his
report as to the spoke patent and then Mr. Mallows bade him good-bye.
"Good day, Mr. Dorrington, good day," he said. "I am extremely
obliged by your careful personal attention to this matter of the patent.
We may leave it with Mr. Stedman now, I think. Good day. I hope soon
to have the pleasure of meeting you again." And with clumsy
stateliness Mr. Mallow's vanished.

II.
"So you don't think the 'Avalanche' good business as an investment?"
Dorrington said once more as he and Stedman, after an excellent dinner,
were cabbing it to the track.
"No, no," Stedman answered, "don't touch it! There's better things than
that coming along presently. Perhaps I shall be able to put you in for
something you know a bit later; but don't be in a hurry. As to the
'Avalanche,' even if everything else were satisfactory, there's too much
'booming' being done just now to please me. All sorts of rumours, you
know, of their having something 'up their sleeve,' and so on; mysterious
hints in the papers, and all that; as to something revolutionary being in

hand with the 'Avalanche' people. Perhaps there is. But why they don't
fetch it out in view of the public subscription for shares is more than I
can understand, unless they don't want too much of a rush. And as to
that well they don't look like modestly shrinking from anything of that
sort up to the present."
They were at the track soon after seven but Gillett was not yet riding.
Dorrington remarked that Gillett appeared to begin late.
"Well," Stedman explained, "he's one of those fellows that afternoon
training doesn't seem to suit, unless it is a bit of walking exercise. He
just does a few miles in the morning and a spurt or two, and then he
comes on just before sunset for a fast ten or fifteen miles -- that is when
he is getting fit for such a race as Saturday's. To-night will be his last
spin of that length before Saturday, because to-morrow will be the day
before the race. To-morrow he'll only go a spurt or two, and rest most
of the day."
They strolled about inside the track, the two highly "banked" ends
whereof seemed to a near-sighted person in the centre to be solid erect
walls, along the face of which the training riders skimmed, fly-fashion.
Only three or four persons beside themselves were in the enclosure
when they first came, but in ten minutes' time Mr. Paul Mallows came
across the track.
"Why," said Stedman to Dorrington, "here's the governor! It isn't often
he comes down here. But I expect he's anxious to see how Gillett's
going, in view of Saturday."
"Good evening Mr. Mallows," said Dorrington. "I hope the