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Stark Young, The Pavilion: Of People and Times Remembered, of Stories and Places. NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951, pp. 155-156—
When I was a child I had seen a traveling medicine show where the climax was that a comedian should lie on the floor while some villainous character trampled on his middle and a stream of milk spurted up most comically out of his mouth. It was on that occasion that the star performer on a the bicycle, which at that time was a huge wheel with a small wheel at the rear, chose one of my little cousins and me to be carried in his arms, the right and the left, in thrilling figurations around the room, with danger stalking his tracks, or so we were supposed to believe; it was only a week later in some nearby town that he essayed to ride down a stairway and his wheel collapsed, and one of the spokes pierced his heart.
