As we came up, our driver advanced to us, with the pole and part of the carriage in his hand, saying curtly, with the first smile we had yet seen upon his countenance, "The carriage is broken."
To use a slang expression, we both felt a little "floored." "Yes," we replied to this incontrovertible fact; "but don't you think you had better catch the pony?"
Jehu acquiesced silently, and proceeded in a leisurely manner up the road, where, assisted by another man, he managed to capture the recalcitrant pony in an incredibly short space of time.
"Well," we inquired when he returned; "and how are we to continue our journey?"
"You cannot."
"Won't the carriage hold together?"
"Mais non!"
"And how are we to get back to Bastia?"
"Oh, I will mend it up enough for that."
It was impossible to be angry with such a piece of placid indifference as this man, however much one might wish it; one might as well have been angry with a sack of wheat.