Meanwhile Mr. Munger became closer and closer attached to me as time went on. Had I been his own son he could not have acted more kindly toward me. One day a member of the firm asked Mr. Munger why he bothered with that little darkey, meaning myself. He answered that I was an unusual boy and that he felt sure I had in me the makings of a champion bicycle rider. “I am going to make him the fastest bicycle rider in the world,” said Mr. Munger. “He has fine habits, is quick to learn, is as game a youngster as I have ever seen, and can be relied upon to do whatever he is told. He has excellent judgment and has a remarkably cool head. Although he is only sixteen he can beat any boy in the city right now. He is improving every day, I notice it every time I go out with him.”
That I might get the maximum speed in my races Mr. Munger built me the very lightest and best bicycle that could be produced. It weighed only fourteen pounds.
In those days high school and college games featured bicycle races on every athletic program they conducted. Just prior to many of the meets a number of athletes would borrow racing wheels from Mr. Munger for the games and I was assigned to instruct them on the track. Before I started to instruct the youths Mr. Munger would inform them that he would permit every one of them who led me over the tape to use the racing wheels in the meet. The young athletes realized they had little or no chance of beating me, and some of them tried to bribe me to let them nose me out. After their training preparations Mr. Munger would ask me to name the athletes who were in my opinion the best riders. They got the use of the wheels.
Incidentally, the weekly workouts with the high school boys helped mightily into rounding me into championship form. I am firmly convinced that the best way to gain experience in racing tactics is by actual participation with the various riders.
But there was a dark lining to my silver cloud. Members of the firm objected strenuously to Mr. Munger's befriending me simply because of my color, and I was inadvertently the cause of Mr. Munger's severing relations with the firm and his decision to establish a bicycle factory in Worcester, Massachusetts. At Mr. Munger's proposal I came with him and have since made my home in that city. Before our train pulled out of Indianapolis Mr. Munger informed a group of his friends that some day I would return to that city as champion bicycle rider of America.
