"Ernest, Ernest, I give you up; you are incorrigible!" rejoined the other, turning away to hide the laugh which the irresistibly comic expression his friend threw into his countenance had excited.
And who were the speakers of this short dialogue? Two dashing, spirited-looking young men, who, at the close of it, reined in their steeds, in the dilemma of not knowing where to direct them. Theirs was, indeed, a wild-goose chase. Their Chateau en Espagne seemed invisible, as such chateaux usually are; and where it might be found, who was there to tell?—Not one. The scene was a desert—not even a bird animated it; and just before them branched out three roads from the one they had hitherto confidently pursued.
After a moment's silence, the cavaliers both burst into a gay laugh.
"Here's a puzzle, Alphonse!" said the one. "Which of the three roads do you opine?"
"The left, by all means," replied the other; "I generally find it leads me right."
"But if it shouldn't now?"
"Why, then, it only leads us wrong."
"But I don't choose to go wrong."
"And what have you been doing ever since you set out?"
"True; but as we are far enough now from that point, we must e'en make the best of the bad."