He was playing with it, twiddling it round between his fingers; the remnant of the machine was lying on the gravel path beside him.
He said: "Something has happened to this front wheel of yours." "It looks like it, doesn't it ?" I answered.

But he was the sort of man that never understands satire.
He said: "It looks to me as if the bearings were all wrong." I said: "Don't you trouble about it any more; you will make yourself tired.

Let us put it back and get off." He said: "We may as well see what is the matter with it, now it is out." He talked as though it had dropped out by accident.
Before I could stop him he had unscrewed something somewhere, and out rolled all over the path some dozen or so little balls.
"Catch 'em!" he shouted; "catch 'em! We mustn't lose any of them." He was quite excited about them.
We grovelled round for half an hour, and found sixteen.

He said he hoped we had got them all, because, if not, it would make a serious difference to the machine.

He said there was nothing you should be more careful about in taking a bicycle to pieces than seeing you did not lose any of the balls.