marvellous how they judge their distance. They will send the water up to
your toes, and then bring it over your head so that it falls around your
heels. They can--"

"Ease up a minute," said George. I said: "Why?"

He said: "I am going to get off and watch the rest of this show from
behind a tree. There may be great performers in this line, as Harris
says; this particular artist appears to me to lack something. He has
just soused a dog, and now he's busy watering a sign-post. I am going to
wait till he has finished."

"Nonsense," said Harris; "he won't wet you."

"That is precisely what I am going to make sure of," answered George,
saying which he jumped off, and, taking up a position behind a remarkably
fine elm, pulled out and commenced filling his pipe.

I did not care to take the tandem on by myself, so I stepped off and
joined him, leaving the machine against a tree. Harris shouted something
or other about our being a disgrace to the land that gave us birth, and
rode on.

The next moment I heard a woman's cry of distress. Glancing round the
stem of the tree, I perceived that it proceeded from the young and
elegant lady before mentioned, whom, in our interest concerning the road-
waterer, we had forgotten. She was riding her machine steadily and
straightly through a drenching shower of water from the hose. She
appeared to be too paralysed either to get off or turn her wheel aside.
Every instant she was becoming wetter, while the man with the hose, who