In the morning everything was wet with dew. The mist was disappearing quickly, and I arose refreshed in body and mind. Specialists would have prognosticated acute rheumatism. Doctors would have foretold death within forty-eight hours. But I was never so free from rheumatism as I am now; moreover, I live to tell the tale, with the probability of continued existence for several years to come. Lizzie looked disconsolate and rusty in every nut and bolt, but with a few kicks she rattled into life once more. The driver of a passing Ford informed me that I was twenty miles from the right road, which meant returning into Moundsville and crossing over the broad, muddy Ohio River, spanned by a lofty suspension bridge made almost entirely of wood. The Ohio River, once seen, is never to be forgotten. It is verily a flowing mass of dirty, yellow-brown mud. The natives of Ohio refer to it as the "Golden" River, I believe, but when I first made its acquaintance, I was in no mood to appreciate such poetic nomenclature. Instead I was bent on reaching Wheeling and breakfast.

Wheeling was reached in a couple of hours' riding along the banks of the river. It need hardly be said that I did justice to a substantial breakfast, which put an entirely new aspect on affairs in general. I struck the main "pike" through to Cincinnati, and continued hopefully on three cylinders with the best of intentions of reaching it that evening, although it meant a ride of over 300 miles.

I did 150 in fairly good time and reckoned on having my lunch-tea-dinner-supper meal at Columbus, the State capital, about five in the afternoon. But about twenty miles from that city a most distressing sound arose from the engine. I had previously slackened down to a steady thirty miles an hour so as to give Lizzie the best chance of holding out over the journey. But now a series of violent thumps and bangs disturbed once and for all my hopeful frame of mind. Undoubtedly there was a big breakage somewhere and it was evidently quite impossible to continue another mile. With a final thud the engine stopped and the machine came to a standstill near a little bridge where a tiny streamlet trickled under the roadway. Near the bridge was, as might be expected, the inevitable hoarding: "Sell it and buy a Ford." Strange that Fate should at times be so ironical!

I made myself comfortable on a grassy slope and proceeded to take the engine down. This I soon discovered was no mean task. It took nearly three hours to remove the cylinders. Woe be unto the man hereafter who puts nuts where they cannot be loosened or places cylinders where they cannot be removed save by an Indian sword-swallower! The result of my investigations was that I found the front piston in fragments, mainly in the bottom of the crank-case. The gudgeon pin was broken in half and the connecting rod was waggling about merrily in the cylinder. All the bearings were loose, and although there was plenty of oil in the sump, one was devoid of metal altogether. This was discovered at the bottom in the form of powder. An encouraging outlook indeed!

Although my motto where a refractory motor is concerned—"to get it home somehow"—could have been ignored, I was not even in walking distance of anywhere. There was no town or village for miles around, and only a solitary farmhouse here and there. Further, an empty stomach does not improve one's outlook on life under such circumstances, and mine was very empty. I took stock of the whole situation. What should it be? Walk to Columbus and take the train, or stick by Lizzie and get along somehow? I counted out my money. It amounted to three dollars and thirty-five cents, not even enough for the railway fare. "No, I've set out to cross these infernal States on a motor-cycle, and I'll do it," I resolved, and sat down again to patch Lizzie's engine together.

The rumble of cart wheels on the brick road attracted my attention. The cart was drawn by a weary horse in the charge of a more weary driver.

"Hi, brother, got anything edible on board?" I shouted.

"I gotta lot o' old boots here," he replied, evidently in ignorance of the meaning of the word "edible."

"No, thanks, I gotta good pair of my own to start on before I come to that. Aincher got any oranges?"

"Yep, I got one box left, four fer a quarter."

Bang went seventy-five cents for a dozen, leaving me with two dollars sixty. Now, thought I, I have enough provisions to last a couple of days. Let Old Harry do his worst.

The vendor of boots, furniture, and oranges went on his weary way.

From a bough of a willow tree I shaped a neat gudgeon pin that fitted dead into the loose end of the connecting rod to guide it up and down in the cylinder. I fished out all the big lumps of the broken piston that remained in the crank-case and tightened up the bearings as well as I could. By the time it was dark I had everything replaced ready to start on the road once more.

Before daybreak, I was up and on the road; my plan was to keep on all day at a steady twenty miles an hour and reach Cincinnati about five in the afternoon. The machine ran well considering its wooden gudgeon pin, although it was not easy to avoid being reminded continually of Lizzie's indisposition, and as time went on the rattles became worse, the clanks became gradually louder, and I began to wonder where my next stop would be.

I passed through Columbus about breakfast-time, but did not stop for breakfast. There was no money for breakfasts. Now, although I did not stop at Columbus, I cannot with but a few words dismiss it entirely from consideration. Although not by any means the largest town in Ohio, it is the State capital. That feature, as I have pointed out before, is not at all unique in the States. In fact, I do not think I could name a single State capital that is the largest town of the State, without referring to the authority of one Baedeker. Not only are there over 125,000 people in Columbus, but it appeared to me to be a very fine city. The streets are wider and are better paved than those of most American cities, and in places are illuminated by large electric arches. Although there are seven towns throughout America boasting this title (each one in a different State), I think Columbus, Ohio, must be the Élite of all the Columbuses.

Outside Columbus I stopped, had lunch—three oranges—and continued. There was really no necessity to stop, but I liked to feel that lunch was just as important an occasion as when it wasn't oranges.

The engine was by now getting rather noisy. People who passed in cars, many of whom I had passed two days before, slowed down as they approached and looked at me wonderingly, as if to ask if I knew anything about it. They probably came to the conclusion that I was a deaf-mute.

Then we got to Springfield, and a noticeable feature at the side of the road, on a special track of its own, was an electric train service connecting up all the large towns in the district, even though the distances amounted to thirty and forty miles, in some cases even fifty, as is the case between Columbus and Springfield. Perhaps I am complimenting them by referring to them as trains, as they are more in the nature of single or double-coach trams, but I was surprised not only by the speed at which they travelled, but also by the number of passengers who availed themselves of the service. In a way, the presence of that track was comforting, particularly when some new noise or rattle emanated from my thrice-weary steed. On the other hand it is distinctly humiliating to be astride a 10 h.p. motor-cycle de luxe, jogging along side-saddle (to ease the growing soreness!) at fifteen or twenty miles per hour on three crotchety cylinders, when a tram-load of disinterested Americans flies past with a shriek at forty or fifty. Generally the driver realized the position and sounded a piercing whistle with a supercilious air, as if to say: "Make way for the fast traffic, please!"

At Springfield the speedometer flicked off the 1,000th mile, and I branched away from the "Pike's Peak" Ocean-to-Ocean Highway (for such it appeared to be), and turned south-westward towards Dayton, a flourishing manufacturing and business centre. "Detours" and sub-detours were the order of the day and were conspicuous by their presence, as also by the general looseness and rottenness of their surface. In theory I was travelling upon the "Dixie Highway," reputed (by advertisements thereon appearing) to be "the finest and most luxurious highway in the States." As far as my experience was concerned, I found it paved with good intentions and bad cobblestones. Sometimes, when the paving blocks had been pulled up preparatory to new ones being laid down, the surface was tolerably good, but then would appear a "detour" heralded by an insolently-improvised notice-board which led the unfortunate traveller miles and miles from his appointed path and over the most disgusting road-surface imaginable.

I was pleased with Dayton. As I left it behind me, I wished it prosperity. It seemed to have the right kind of air about it. A friendly policeman held up a bunch of traffic for two minutes for me while he put me "wise" to the road to take. He noticed my New York number-plate and finished his chat with "Well, good day, brother, and the best of luck to you." I wouldn't even have killed a mosquito in Dayton!

It was now well after midday. Cincinnati was still about sixty miles away. Would it be safe to have a meal in the next town? I had filled up with "gas" and oil in Dayton and had about fifty cents (2s.) left. With a three days' diet of oranges, I had cultivated an appetite of great latent possibilities. I determined to be rash. Next stop, I told myself, I would look around for a "bakeshop."

An hour later I arrived at a little town called "Lebanon." It was very small, very picturesque, and very unpretentious. But it boasted an excellent "bakeshop." I leant Lizzie against the kerb outside and pressed my nose against the window-pane. The sight of all those nice cakes was almost as good as a feed—but not quite! I espied one, plain and large but tasty-looking. I valued it at twenty-five cents. "Well, it'll last a long time," I thought, and entered meekly to inquire the price. "Five cents," replied the lady of the counter. "Done! It's mine, all of it!"

Long live Lebanon!

A few miles out, I halted near a bridge under which ran a little stream of crystal water. It was a treat to be out of the glare of the baking sun, so I sat down on the bank underneath the bridge and settled down in earnest to a sumptuous dinner. The bill of fare was as follows:—

And oh, what a meal was there, my countrymen! There was enough and to spare. The cooking was excellent, the service irreproachable, and there were no gratuities.

After a leisurely half-hour I stuffed what little cake I couldn't contain into the tool-box, took one last, lingering draught from the cool crystal stream, and again kicked Lizzie into a rattle.

Once more towards Cincinnati! Two hours only, now, I reminded myself, and all the trees and birds in hearing. Gradually those two hours became shorter as mile after weary mile rattled past. Sure enough, in about the time I had reckoned the pot-holes in the road grew larger and the ruts deeper, a sure sign of approaching civilization. Then a huge signboard appeared, "Cincinnati, the Queen City of the West. Make your home in Cincinnati."

The Cincinnati Speedway was passed on the right, and after a couple of miles or more I struck tram-lines. The reader can well imagine how glad and relieved I felt when I spotted trams and tram-lines, those things which in normal life I rightly detest and abhor. Whereas once upon a time I considered them to be the motorist's greatest enemy, I now smiled upon them with friendly gaze.

By the time I was actually on the outskirts of the town, I was "baked to a frizzle." And such a thirst! For three days I had been amassing a good thirst. Ohio mud is not really a good beverage. It might perhaps "put one over" the "near" beer that I have tasted in various American towns, but that's not to be wondered at. The man who first called it "near" beer wasn't much of a judge of distance! Never could I remember having been so hot, so thirsty, and so fed up, all in one. I pulled up at the first drug store and literally squandered twenty-five cents in an orgy of ice-cream sodas. I took the precaution to retain ten cents, however, "in case anything turned up."

At about half-past four we arrived. A wealth of meaning rests in those two words. My friend Steve heard the noise as he sat reading on the verandah of 3,450 Clifton Avenue. "That can't be Shep. That's somebody wheeling a lawn-mower," he said to himself without looking-up, and went on with his book. But when the lawn-mower had overrun itself and turned round and came back and continued indefinitely to lawn-mow outside the same 3,450, he looked up and saw that it was indeed a motor-cycle or, at any rate, the unmistakable remnants of one. When he saw the rider, he thought: "No, that can't be Shep after all; that's the dustman."

But fact will always triumph over fiction. In the same way soap, thank Heaven, will always triumph over dirt. But what a relief to be once again in a comfortable house, that could almost be considered "home," and once more to know the joys of a good hot bath and feel the luxurious embrace of clean clothes again!