"She'll do; only I give fair warning that I shall break her down most likely."
"What for, I should like to know?"
"Because I must be in Paris this evening," said the farmer, making the masonic sign of "Pressing danger."
"Ride her to death, then," answered Lefranc; "but give me Younker."
"A bargain."
"Have a glass of wine?"
"Two. I have an honest lad with me who is tired with traveling this far. Give him some refreshment."
In ten minutes the gossips had put away a bottle and Pitou had swallowed a two-pound loaf and a hunk of bacon, nearly all fat. While he was eating, the stableman, a good sort of a soul, rubbed him down with a wisp of hay as if he were a favorite horse. Thus feasted and massaged, Pitou swallowed a glass of wine from a third bottle, emptied with so much velocity that the lad was lucky to get his share.
Billet got upon Maggie, and Pitou "forked" himself on, though stiff as a pair of compasses.
The good beast, tickled by the spur, trotted bravely under the double load towards town, without ceasing to flick off the flies with her robust tail, the strong hairs lashing the dust off Pitou's back and stinging his thin calves, from which his stockings had run down.