"Coming!" he yelled. And he smilingly explained to Susette: It's my old friend, Joseph, the carter. He'd bring his work to me if he had to travel five leagues." And he was for jumping up and running to the door.
"Wait," cried Susette. "I'll have to go with you, and I can't be seen like this."
"That's right," said Gaspard. "That confounded chain! I'd forgotten all about it." So he called out again to his friend, and the two of them held quite a conversation while Susette tried to make herself presentable. But Gaspard turned to her as she shook her hair out for the third time, starting to rearrange it. "Quick!" he urged. "He's in a hurry. One of his horses has cast a shoe."
"You can't show yourself like that, either," cried Susette, playing for time.
"Me?" laughed Gaspard. "I'm a smith. I'd like to see a smith who couldn't show himself in singlet and apron!"
"You look like a brigand."
But he merely laughed: "Joseph won't mind."
And, indeed, Joseph the carter did appear to have but little thought for anything except the work in hand. For that matter, neither, apparently, did Gaspard. After the first few brief civilities and the inevitable jests about the chain, their attention was absorbed at once by the horses. There were four of these—Percherons, huge monsters with shaggy fetlocks and massive feet; yet Joseph and Gaspard went about lifting these colossal hoofs, and considering them as tenderly as if the two had been young mothers concerned with the feet of babes.
At last Susette let out a little cry, and both men turned to look at her.
"I faint," she said weakly.