"And without a hat?"
"Oh! it is very simple. My father has two magnificent horses, and he is quite capable of disinheriting me for the accident that has happened to one of them."
"What is that?"
"I was riding one of them when it took fright at the report of a gun that was fired close to me, and ran away; it made for the bank of the Dordogne and plunged in."
"With you?"
"No; luckily I had time to slip off, or I should have been drowned with him."
"Ah! then the poor beast was drowned?"
"Pardioux! you know the Dordogne—half a league across."
"And then?"
"Then I resolved not to return home, but to go away as far as possible from my father's anger."