“Goddam milor’ the Englishman!” shrieked the commissary; “he does not know thy name!”
The stranger put out a hand as he stood, and clapped me on the shoulder so that I winced.
“Riouffe!” he cried, in a very bantering voice—“not know his friend Jack Comely!” (“ne savoir pas son ami Jack Comely—pooh!”)
“That he will swear to, my Jack,” said I.
The commissary released Carinne, and fell back gasping.
“Pardon! les bras m’en tombent!” he muttered, in dismayed tones, and went as white and mottled as a leg of raw mutton.
But the stranger advanced to Carinne, with a blush and a gallant bow.
“Madame,” said he, “I cannot sufficiently curse my impatience for having cut you out of a stage. It was an error. Entrez, s’il vous plait.”
He spoke execrable French, the angel! It was enough that we all understood him. We climbed into the limonière; the stranger followed, and the door was slammed to. The landlord, with a hussy or so, gaped at the inn-door. The post-boy, making himself infinitesimally small to the commissary, limbered up his cattle—three horses abreast. One of these he mounted, as if it were a nightmare. In a moment he was towelling his beasts to a gallop, to escape, one would think, the very embarrassment he carried with him. From time to time he turned in his saddle, and presented a scared face to our view.
“Well?” said the stranger, looking at us with a smile.