Taming the Bicycle

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Five days later I got out and was carried down to the hospital, and found the Expert doing pretty fairly. In a few more days I was quite sound. I attribute this to my prudence in always dismounting on something soft. Some recommend a feather bed, but I think an Expert is better.

The Expert got out at last, and brought four assistants with him. It was a good idea. These four held the graceful cobweb upright while I climbed into the saddle; they formed in column and marched on either side of me while the Expert pushed behind; all hands assisted at the dismount.

The bicycle had what is called the "wabbles," and had them very badly. In order to keep my position, a good many things were required. For instance, if I found myself falling to the right, I put the tiller hard down the other way, by a quite natural impulse, and so violated a law and kept on going down. The law required the opposite thing—the big wheel must be turned in the direction in which you are falling. It is hard to believe this, when you are told it. And not merely hard to believe it, but impossible.

The steps of one's progress are distinctly marked. At the end of each lesson he knows he has acquired something. It is not like studying German, where you mull along in a groping uncertain way for 30 years and at last, just as you think you've got it, they spring the subjunctive on you, and there you are. No—and I see now, plainly enough, that the great pity about the German language is, that you can't fall off it and hurt yourself. There is nothing like that feature to make you attend to business.

Finally you come to the voluntary dismount; you learned the other kind first of all. It is quite easy to tell one how to do it; the words are few, the requirement simple, and apparently undifficult; let your left pedal go down till your left leg is nearly straight, turn your wheel to the left, and get off as you would from a horse. It certainly does sound exceedingly easy. But try as you may, you don't get down as you would from a horse, you get down as you would from a house afire.

Adapted from Mark Twain: Collected Tales , Sketches, Speeches, and Essays 1852—1890. Available from the Library of America (New York).

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