To put on a single-tube tire properly, the rim should be thoroughly cleaned with gasoline, and the new tire put on with shellac or cement, or with simply the lugs to hold.

Shellac can be obtained at any drug store, is quickly brushed over both the tire and the rim, and the tire put in place—­that holds very well.  Cement well applied is stronger.  If the rim is well covered with old cement, gasoline applied to the surface of the old cement will soften it; or with a plumber’s torch the rim may be heated without injuring enamel and the cement melted, or take a cake of cement, soften it in gasoline or melt it, or even light it like a stick of sealing-wax and apply it to the rim.  If hot cement is used it will be necessary to heat the rim after the tire is on to make a good job.

After the rim is prepared, insert valve-stem and the lugs near it; let the wheel down so as to rest on that part of the tire, then with the iron work the tire into the rim, beginning at each side of valve.  The tire goes into place easily until the top is reached where the two irons are used to lift tire and lugs over the rim; once in rim it is often necessary to pound the tire with the flat of the iron to work the lugs into their places; by striking the tire in the direction it should go the lugs one by one will slip into their holes; put on the nuts and the work is done.

In selecting a half-leaf of a spring, choose one the width of the springs to the machine, and carry along three or four small spring clips, for it is quite likely a spring may be broken in the course of a long run, and, if so, the half-leaf can be clipped over the break, making the broken spring as serviceable and strong for the time being as if sound.

CHAPTER FIVE ON TO BUFFALO “GEE WHIZ!!”

From Painesville three roads led east,—­the North Ridge, Middle Ridge, and South Ridge.  We followed the middle road, which is said to be by far the best; it certainly is as good a gravel road as one could ask.  Some miles out a turn is made to the South Ridge for Ashtabula.

There is said to be a good road out of Ashtabula; possibly there is, but we missed it at one of the numerous cross roads, and soon found ourselves wallowing through corn-fields, climbing hills, and threading valleys in the vain effort to find Girard,—­a point quite out of our way, as we afterwards learned.

The Professor’s bump of locality is a depression.  As a passenger without serious occupation, it fell to his lot to inquire the way.  This he would do very minutely, with great suavity and becoming gravity, and then with no sign of hesitation indicate invariably the wrong road.  Once, after crossing a field where there were no fences to mark the highway, descending a hill we could not have mounted, and finding a stream that seemed impassable, the Professor quietly remarked,—­

“That old man must have been mistaken regarding the road; yet he had lived on that corner forty years.  Strange how little some people know about their surroundings!”