"Well, don't let him," cried Adela, huddling up on her donkey, and pulling at the rein to make him creep closer to the protecting earth wall.
"Na—na," one of the guides ran up to her, shaking his head. Adela, fresh from her Paris school had all her French, of the best kind too, at her tongue's end, but she seemed to get on no better than Mr. King.
"My French is just bad enough to be useful," laughed Jasper. So he untangled the trouble again, and made Adela see that she really must not pull at her bridle, but allow the donkey to go his own gait, for they were all trained to it.
"Your French is just beautiful," cried Polly. "Oh, Jasper, you know
Monsieur always says—"
"Don't, Polly," begged Jasper, in great distress.
"No, I won't," promised Polly, "and I didn't mean to. But I couldn't help it, Jasper, when you spoke against your beautiful French."
"We've all heard you talk French, Jasper, so you needn't feel so cut up if Polly should quote your Monsieur," cried Tom, who, strange to say, no matter how far he chanced to ride in the rear, always managed to hear everything.
"That's because we are everlastingly turning a corner," he explained, when they twitted him for it, "and as I'm near the end of the line I get the benefit of the doubling and twisting, for the front is always just above me. So don't say anything you don't want me to hear, old fellow," he sang out to Jasper on the bridle path "just above," as Tom had said.
"Now, don't you want to get off?" cried Jasper, deserting his donkey, and running up to Phronsie, as they reached the summit and drew up before the hotel.
"Oh, somebody take that child off," groaned old Mr. King, accepting the arm of the guide to help him dismount, "for I can't. Every separate and distinct bone in my body protests against donkeys from this time forth and forevermore. And yet I've got to go down on one," he added ruefully.