He had gone over half a creosoted wood
block which had somehow escaped from a lozenge-shaped oasis in the road
where two workmen were indolently using picks under the magic protection
of a tiny, dirty red flag. Secure in the guardianship of the bit of
bunting, which for them was as powerful and sacred as the flag of an
empire, the two workmen gazed with indifference at George and at the
deafening traffic which swirled affronting but harmless around them.
George slackened speed, afraid lest the jar might have snapped the
plates of his accumulator. The motor-bicycle was a wondrous thing, but
as capricious and delicate as a horse. For a trifle, for nothing at all,
it would cease to function. The high-tension magneto and the float-feed
carburetter, whose invention was to transform the motor-bicycle from an
everlasting harassment into a means of loco-motion, were yet years away
in the future. However, the jar had done no harm. The episode, having
occupied less than ten seconds, was closed. George felt his heart
thumping. He thought suddenly of the recent Paris-Madrid automobile
race, in which the elite of the world had perished. He saw himself
beneath the motor-bus, and a futile staring crowd round about. Simply by
a miracle was he alive. But this miracle was only one of a score of
miracles.
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