“Come, lend a hand, my boy,” said he to Pierrotin.
The farmer was hoisted in by the driver and the stableman to a shout of “Yo, heave ho!” from Georges.
“Oh! I am not going far; I am only going to la Cave!” said Farmer Light, answering a jest with good humor. In France everybody understands a joke.
“Get into the corner,” said Pierrotin. “There will be six of you.”
“And your other horse?” asked Georges. “Is it as fabulous as the third horse of a post-chaise?”
“There it is, master,” said Pierrotin, pointing to the little mare that had come up without calling.
“He calls that insect a horse!” said Georges, astonished.
“Oh, she is a good one to go, is that little mare,” said the farmer, who had taken his seat.—“Morning, gentlemen.—Are we going to weigh anchor, Pierrotin?”
“Two of my travelers are getting a cup of coffee,” said the driver.
The young man with the hollow cheeks and his follower now reappeared.
“Come, let us get off,” was now the universal cry.
“We are off—we are off!” replied Pierrotin. “Let her go,” he added to his man, who kicked away the stones that scotched the wheels.
Pierrotin took hold of Rougeot’s bridle with an encouraging “Tclk, tclk,” to warn the two steeds to pull themselves together; and, torpid as they evidently were, they started the vehicle, which Pierrotin brought to a standstill in front of the gate of the Silver Lion. After this purely preliminary manoeuvre, he again looked down the Rue d’Enghien, and vanished, leaving the conveyance in the care of the stableman.
“Well! Is your governor subject to these attacks?” Mistigris asked of the man.
“He is gone to fetch his oats away from the stable,” replied the Auvergnat, who was up to all the arts in use to pacify the impatience to travelers.
“After all,” said Mistigris, “time is a great plaster.”
At that time there was in the Paris studios a mania for distorting proverbs. It was considered a triumph to hit on some change of letters or some rhyming word which should suggest an absurd meaning, or even make it absolute nonsense.1
“And Paris was not gilt in a play,” replied his comrade.
Pierrotin now returned, accompanied by the Comte de Sérizy, round the corner of the Rue de l’Echiquier; they had no doubt had a short conversation.
“Père Léger, would you mind giving your place up to Monsieur le Comte? It will trim the chaise better.”
“And we shall not be off for an hour yet if you go on like this,” said Georges. “You will have to take out that infernal bar we have had such plaguey trouble to fit in, and everybody will have to get out for the last comer. Each of us has a right to the place he booked. What number is this gentleman’s?—Come, call them over. Have you a waybill? Do you keep a book? Which is Monsieur le Comte’s place?—Count of what?”
“Monsieur le Comte,” said Pierrotin, visibly disturbed, “you will not be comfortable.”
“Can’t you count, man?” said Mistigris. “Short counts make tall friends.”
“Mistigris, behave!” said his master quite seriously.
Monsieur de Sérizy was supposed by his fellow-travelers to be some respectable citizen called Lecomte.
“Do not disturb anybody,” said the Count to Pierrotin; “I will sit in front by you.”
“Now, Mistigris,” said the young artist, “remember the respect due to age. You don’t know how dreadfully old you may live to be. Manners take the van. Give your place up to the gentleman.”
Mistigris opened the apron of the chaise, and jumped out as nimbly as a frog into the water.
“You cannot sit as rabbit, august old man!” said he to Monsieur de Sérizy.
“Mistigris, Tarts are the end of man,” said his master.
“Thank you, monsieur,” said the Count to the artist, by whose side he now took his seat. And the statesman looked with a sagacious eye at the possessors of the back seat, in a way that deeply aggrieved Oscar and Georges.
“We are an hour and a quarter behind time,” remarked Oscar.
“People who want a chaise to themselves should book all the places,” added Georges.
The Comte de Sérizy, quite sure now that he was not recognized, made no reply, but sat with the expression of a good-natured tradesman.
“And if you had been late, you would have liked us to wait for you, I suppose?” said the farmer to the two young fellows.
Pierrotin was looking out towards the Porte Saint-Denis, and paused for a moment before mounting to the hard box-seat, where Mistigris was kicking his heels.
“If you are still waiting for somebody, I am not the last,” remarked the Count.
“That is sound reasoning,” said Mistigris.
Georges and Oscar laughed very rudely.
“The old gentleman is not strikingly original,” said Georges to Oscar, who was enchanted with this apparent alliance.
When Pierrotin had settled himself in his place, he again looked back, but failed to discern in the crowd the two travelers who were wanting to fill up his cargo.
“By the Mass, but a couple more passengers would not come amiss,” said he.
“Look here, I have not paid; I shall get out,” said Georges in alarm.
“Why, whom do you expect, Pierrotin?” said Léger.
Pierrotin cried “Gee!” in a particular tone, which Rougeot and Bichette knew to mean business at last, and they trotted off towards the hill at a brisk pace, which, however, soon grew slack.
The Count had a very red face, quite scarlet indeed, with an inflamed spot here and there, and set off all the more by his perfectly white hair. By any but quite young men this complexion would have been understood as the inflammatory effect on the blood of incessant work. And, indeed, these angry pimples so much disfigured his really noble face, that only close inspection could discern in his greenish eyes all the acumen of the judge, the subtlety of the statesman, and the learning of the legislator. His face was somewhat flat; the nose especially looked as if it had been flattened. His hat hid the breadth and beauty of his brow; and, in fact, there
