I was, it will be remembered, pretty clever at all kinds of physical exercise, and I could jump best of all.
"Do you see that ditch?" I said to my companion, pointing it out to her as something amazing. "Well, I can jump across it."
"Really?" she said with an indifferent air: "it looks very wide."
"It is fourteen feet wide.... I can tell you it is more than M. Miaud can do."
"He would be right not to try," she said: "what is the use of jumping it?"
I was struck dumb at the reply. When Pizarro was conquering Peru, one of his lieutenants, so I had read, when pursued by the natives, had leapt over a little river, which was 22 feet wide, by the help of his lance, which he stuck in the bottom.
I thought it a wonderful feat, and I had long dreamt of the possibility of doing a similar exploit if ever in great peril.
Now I had got as far as to be able to jump a distance of fourteen feet, with my own unaided strength and without the aid of any lance; this accomplishment of agility astonished my comrades, two or three only offering to compete with me. How was it, then, that the suggestion did not excite any enthusiasm in my fair Parisian?
I took it that her indifference arose from her incredulity.