The carriage awaited the travellers, and they took their seats with much satisfaction: Dubourg, overjoyed to be rid of his berlin; Ménard, impatient to leave Goton and the inn, for which he had conceived an intense aversion; and Frédéric, because he was much more comfortable in the roomy, well-hung post chaise than in monsieur le baron's wretched berlin.
Ménard sighed once or twice for the seat that the Princess of Hungary had occupied; but he still had to console him the King of Prussia's snuff-box, and the prospect of drinking tokay from Tekely's cellar.
VI
THE LITTLE WOOD
Our travellers reached the next village without mishap, and stopped there to breakfast. Ménard admired the tranquillity with which their noble companion bore the twofold loss of his carriage and his fifty thousand francs.
"I am a philosopher, Monsieur Ménard," said Dubourg; "and I care little for money; indeed, I think that I should prefer mediocrity to a too exalted station: Magna servitus est magna fortuna."
"You are no ordinary man, my dear Dubourg," said Frédéric; "there are so many people whose philosophy does not outlast their prosperity, like the coward who boasts of his courage when the danger has passed."
"I certainly am not ambitious," rejoined Ménard; "and I know how to bow to circumstances; but I consider that it requires great strength of mind to give up without regret a good table and a good bed; and when I say a good bed, I don't mean a high one."
Dubourg observed that when they had breakfasted it was Monsieur Ménard who paid the bill.
"Don't you carry the purse?" he asked Frédéric, in an undertone.
"No; my father gave the funds to Ménard."