“Then walk,” said I.
“Pardon me,” said he, “’tis wholly out of my power.”
“Then stay behind,” returned I, chafed at his little control over difficulties.
“’Tis what I shall be reduced to,” answered he, with a fallen air, “if my master cannot mount me.”
“My good fellow,” then said I in another tone, “bring me the villain who offered me that misery in exchange for the mare.”
He immediately went off, and soon returned.
I was busied with other matters. I was predetermined on the exchange, which was instantly concluded, and gave the order for the march.
My charger bounded under me with a most curveted agility, which, added to a very martial neigh, would have made me as proud as Marshal Ney[27] himself had it not been that the spectacle of my other nag much dashed and diluted the spirit of my exultation. As for Louis he will certainly go to the devil, for there was not somehow room enough on his back whereon to strap my writing-case, for though it was made on purpose for a man’s back, Louis had hung it round his neck, and resembled a Jack that had stolen the locket of a giantess. This embarrassed and bruised his arms, which were both employed to tug at the first bridle he had ever laid hands upon, so that the jade, finding no encouragement to violate her own inclination, would go head foremost into a doorway, the upper part of which she found open, and being buffeted away by the indignant housewife, she would swiftly wheel round, to the infinite terror of Louis, and do the same thing by some other door on the opposite side of the street.
Waiting as I was, to see what sort of a figure my valet cut as he went along, and being confounded at the melancholy state of things—my writing-case banging his breast, and the studied awkwardness which he added to the villainy of the beast—I felt there was but one way to save myself from committing some egregious extravagance. So after assailing him with a deal of bad language and worse Italian, I galloped away, and giving a charge respecting the Italian to my good tall sergeant, resolved never to bestow on him another thought, and, very happy to have escaped, I walked my horse along the banks of the Tagus, giving full range to that cheery meditation inspired by youth and fine weather.