Car j'ai toujours huit francs et dix centimes! a jocular, sub-sardonic, a triumphant refrain!
But all this is by the way; the point is, why was the eight francs and ten centimes of such importance just there and then?
For this reason, that I could get no more money before Milan; and I think a little reflection will show you what a meaning lies in that phrase. Milan was nearer ninety miles than eighty miles off. By the strict road it was over ninety. And so I was forced to consider and to be anxious, for how would this money hold out?
There was nothing for it but forced marches, and little prospect of luxuries. But could it be done?
I thought it could, and I reasoned this way.
'It is true I need a good deal of food, and that if a man is to cover great distances he must keep fit. It is also true that many men have done more on less. On the other hand, they were men who were not pressed for time--I am; and I do not know the habits of the country. Ninety miles is three good days; two very heavy days. Indeed, whether it can be done at all in two is doubtful. But it can be done in two days, two nights, and half the third day. So if I plan it thus I shall achieve it; namely, to march say forty-five miles or more to-day, and to sleep rough at the end of it. My food may cost me altogether three francs. I march the next day twenty-five to thirty, my food costing me another three francs. Then with the remaining two francs and ten centimes I will take a bed at the end of the day, and coffee and bread next morning, and will march the remaining twenty miles or less (as they may be) into Milan with a copper or two in my pocket. Then in Milan, having obtained my money, I will eat.'
140
STORY OF THE OLD SAILOR
So I planned with very careful and exact precision, but many accidents and unexpected things, diverting my plans, lay in wait for me among the hills.