"Oh, like most of them!" I answered; "easily enough in the morning; goes
a little stiffly after lunch."

He caught hold of it by the front wheel and the fork and shook it
violently.

I said: "Don't do that; you'll hurt it."

I did not see why he should shake it; it had not done anything to him.
Besides, if it wanted shaking, I was the proper person to shake it. I
felt much as I should had he started whacking my dog.

He said: "This front wheel wobbles."

I said: "It doesn't if you don't wobble it." It didn't wobble, as a
matter of fact--nothing worth calling a wobble.

He said: "This is dangerous; have you got a screw-hammer?"

I ought to have been firm, but I thought that perhaps he really did know
something about the business. I went to the tool shed to see what I
could find. When I came back he was sitting on the ground with the front
wheel between his legs. He was playing with it, twiddling it round
between his fingers; the remnant of the machine was lying on the gravel
path beside him.

He said: "Something has happened to this front wheel of yours."

"It looks like it, doesn't it?" I answered. But he was the sort of man
that never understands satire.