The sound of a bicycle being propped against the wall outside was less frequent than that of a horse’s hoofs; but there were already a few cyclists, and the number of these increased rapidly when the new low safety bicycle superseded the old penny-farthing type. Then, sometimes, on a Saturday afternoon, the call of a bugle would be heard, followed by the scuffling of dismounting feet, and a stream of laughing, jostling young men would press into the tiny office to send facetious telegrams. These members of the earliest cycling clubs had a great sense of their own importance, and dressed up to their part in a uniform composed of a tight navy knickerbocker suit with red or yellow braided coat and a small navy pill-box cap embroidered with their club badge. The leader carried a bugle suspended on a coloured cord from his shoulder. Cycling was considered such a dangerous pastime that they telegraphed home news of their safe arrival at the farthest point in their journey. Or perhaps they sent the telegrams to prove how far they really had travelled, for a cyclist’s word as to his day’s mileage then ranked with an angler’s account of his catch.

“Did run in two hours, forty and a half minutes. Only ran down two fowls, a pig, and a carter,” is a fair sample of their communications. The bag was mere brag; the senders had probably hurt no living creature; some of them may even have dismounted by the roadside to allow a horsed carriage to pass, but every one of them liked to pose as “a regular devil of a fellow.”

They were townsmen out for a lark, and, after partaking of refreshment at the hotel, they would play leap-frog or kick an old tin about the green. They had a lingo of their own. Quite common things, according to them, were “scrumptious,” or “awfully good,” or “awfully rotten,” or just “bally awful.” Cigarettes they called “fags;” their bicycles their “mounts,” or “my machine” or “my trusty steed;” the Candleford Green people they alluded to as “the natives.” Laura was addressed by them as “fair damsel,” and their favourite ejaculation was “What ho!” or “What ho, she bumps!”