I had hardly executed this adroit manœuvre, when cries of “Stop! stop!” reached my ear; and at the same time I saw the old man running panting after the carriage, and shouting. The postillion at length stopped the horses, and he was just in time—a few paces further on, and our heavy carriage would have been upset. The worthy beggar had perceived that one of our wheels was on the point of losing its tire, and as the old man in his haste had lost his coin, and was beginning to look for it, I spared him this trouble by giving him a five-franc piece.
How true it is that an act of kindness is never lost: to a simple penny we owed our escape from an accident, the consequences of which would have been incalculable. A neighboring cartwright soon came up and told us it was necessary to have the two wheels of the carriage repaired; and he gave us the following explanation of the accident that had occurred:
The diligence had been standing for a long time in a damp coach-house, and the felloes had swollen. The heat produced by our rapid locomotion had dried them, and they had caught fire under the tire. The operation lasted four hours, and cost me forty francs; this was, perhaps, twenty more than it was worth, but what could I do but pay, as I should have lost precious time by appealing to the law?
I was beginning to understand that travelling impressions in a diligence are not at all of a nature to enrich a traveller; but the reflection came too late, and I could only continue my journey. I, therefore, did so, not very gaily, perhaps, but at any rate with a degree of careless resignation.
I will pass over the details of a thousand petty miseries we had to undergo, like so many pin-pricks echeloned on our passage to prepare us for more bitter deceptions. We at length reached Quiévrain, the frontier town of Belgium, where we were to give up our horses and put our carriage on the railway running to Brussels; beforehand, however, we had to endure the formalities of the custom-house.
I hoped, as the theatrical agent had informed me, to pass all my traps summarily, by declaring the nature of my apparatus, and hence I went to the office and made my declaration.
“There is only one way of passing your luggage, sir,” a clerk said to me, very politely. (Belgian officials are generally very gentle and civil—at least, I always found them so.)
“Then,” I replied, in the same tone, “will you have the kindness, sir, to tell me the way, that I may profit by it as speedily as possible?”
“You must unpack your instruments, put an ad valorem duty on them, which the comptroller will verify, and pay 25 per cent. on the amount, after which you can start as soon as you please.”
“But, sir, that is not possible,” I said, greatly annoyed at this contretemps.