"We've been interviewing animals of various sorts for you all day," she said. "I've had a kind of employment agency for mules, and have taken their characters and capacities. But––"
"There's a 'but,' is there?" I cut into her ominous pause.
"Well, the nicest beasts are all engaged for days ahead, or else their owners can't spare them for a long trip; or else they're too young; or else they're too old; or else they're hideous. At least, there's one who's hideous, and I'm sorry to say he's the only one you can have."
"'Twas ever thus, from childhood's hour.'"
"But the landlord says there are dozens of mules at Martigny."
"A mere mirage."
"No, he has telephoned. But you'll look at the one here, I suppose, if only as a matter of form? I think he's outside now."
"Let him be brought before me," I said, with the air of a tyrant in a melodrama; and, by the way, I have always thought it would be very pleasant being a tyrant by profession, like Him of Syracuse, for instance. You could do all the things you wanted to do, without consulting the convenience of anybody else, or having it on your conscience that you hadn't.
At this moment Jack appeared. It seemed that he had been putting the mule (the one available mule) through his paces, and the wretched fellow was laughing. "It's not funny, at all," said I, thinking it was the situation which amused him. But Jack explained that it wasn't that. "It's the brute's tail," said he. "When you see it, you'll know what I mean."
I did know, at sight. The organ—if a mule's tail can be called an organ—had mean proportions and a hideous activity which expressed to my mind a base and depraved nature. Had there been no other of his kind on earth, I would still have refused to take this beast as my companion; and after a few moments' feverish discussion, it was arranged that after all we must go through the Rhone Valley to-morrow to Martigny.