"My horse?" questioned the lady in bad French.
"Yes, the barb hitched there."
"Not for sale," and the lady slammed the window.
"Come, come, I am not in luck this day," said Jean, "for folk will neither sell nor hire. Confound it all! I shall take the Arab, if not for sale, and the coach horses if not for hire, and run them to their last legs. Put the horses to," he concluded to the lady traveler's lackey, who was on the coach.
"Help me, boys?" shouted the post master to his hostlers.
"Oh, don't," cried Chon to her brother; "you will only be massacred."
"Massacred, with three to three? for I count on your philosopher," said Jean, shouting to Gilbert, who was stupefied. "Get out and pitch in with a cane, or a rock, or the fist. And don't look like a plaster image!"
Here the burlesque battle began, with the horses pulled between Jean and their owner. The stronger man hurled the latter into the duckpond, where he floundered among the frightened ducks and geese.
"Help! murder!" he shrieked, while the viscount hastened to get the fresh horses into the traces.
"Help, in the king's name!" yelled the innkeeper, rallying his two grooms.