"'I must warn you that the slightest jolt gives me frightful pain; I am almost dead from the horrible bumpings that your miserable comrade has inflicted on me. I wish to travel gently, very gently, at the least little trot, slowly, do you understand? because'--and he coughed as though he were breathing his last--'because the least little shock might kill me--and I mean to pay only the tariff that the law allows, twenty-five sous for the guide, my good friend.' And thereupon he began a fit of coughing as though he were about to expire, the old wreck! "'Ah, you only pay twenty-five sous! And you call me your _bon ami!_ Aha! So it hurts you to go too fast, does it? Wait a bit! Wait a bit, old miser!' said I, as I jumped a-straddle Devastator's back. 'I'll give you your gentle trot, yes, a nice gentle little trot!' And crack! off I go full blast, and I joggle the old gig as though I meant to shake it to pieces, but fast, ah, but so fast, that if the old fox had been paying a thousand francs to the guide (as they say the great Napoleon used to do), he could not have gone any faster. And let me tell you that I took in all the ruts and gullies on the way. "Pretty soon I got the horse into a real gallop,--oh, something like a gallop! _V'lan!_ You should have seen the jumps that the old berlingot took in flying over the ground; but to do justice to every one, I will say that the old berlingot must have been solidly built not to have gone all to pieces a thousand times." "Unhappy man," said I to my guide, "you might have killed that poor sick man!" "Kill him! Ah, well, yes! Kill him indeed, the old brigand! I had no such good luck as that; but we went at such a pace, monsieur, that in spite of these sandy roads, and with only one extra horse, I got him to ---- (and that is two posts and three-quarters) in an hour and a half." "The devil you did!" said I. "Well, that was a ride!" "But hold on, monsieur. Wait till you hear the end. The voice in the berlingot told me not to go into the village; so when we got to a hill about two hundred yards from ---- we came to a halt, and I unhitched poor Devastator for the last time, for he was foundered and died afterwards, died from that race; so dead that my master put me on the retired list for fifteen days, and that same scamper cost me more than a hundred crowns; yes, me, poor devil as I am! "But you must admit, monsieur, that it is hard lines to be made to take twenty-five cents, and then to be called '_mon bon ami_' by such a scoundrel as that. One is apt to forget himself." "Continue," said I. "Well, monsieur, I unfasten my horse and open the door, expecting to see my old invalid lying fainting in the bottom of the old wagon, for I hadn't heard a sound for the last hour. Thousand thunders! what do I see? A great strong fellow who was clacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and corking up a bottle of rum; and who says to me, in a great deep voice fit for a cathedral singer: