each took a pinch—Pity thy box should ever want one, said I to myself; so I put a couple of sous into it—taking a small pinch out of his box, to enhance their value, as I did it—He felt the weight of the second obligation more than that of the first—’twas doing him an honour—the other was only doing him a charity—and he made me a bow down to the ground for it.

—Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been campaign’d and worn out to death in the service—here’s a couple of sous for thee. Vive le Roi! said the old soldier.

I had then but three sous left: so I gave one, simply pour l’amour de dieu, which was the footing on which it was begg’d—The poor woman had a dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other motive.

Mon cher et très charitable Monsieur—There’s no opposing this, said I.

My Lord anglois—the very sound was worth the money—so I gave my last sous for it. But in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked a pauvre honteux, who had no one to ask a sous for him, and who, I believed, would have perish’d, ere he could have ask’d one for himself: he stood by the chaise a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better days—Good god! said I—and have I not one single sous left to give him—But you have a thousand! cried all the powers of nature, stirring within me—so I gave him—no matter what—I am ashamed to say how much, now—and was ashamed to think, how little, then: so if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these two fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two what was the precise sum.

I could afford nothing for the rest, but Dieu vous benisse—Et le bon Dieu vous benisse encore—said the old soldier, the dwarf, &c. The pauvre honteux could say nothing—he pull’d out a little handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away—and I thought he thank’d me more than them all.

The Bidet

Having settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise with more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and La Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little Bidet,⁶ and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs)—he canter’d away before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince.—

—But what is happiness! what is grandeur in this painted scene of life! A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a sudden stop to La Fleur’s career—his Bidet would not pass by it—a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow was kick’d out of his jack-boots the very first kick.

La Fleur bore his fall like a French christian, saying neither more or less upon it, than, Diable! so presently got up and came to the charge again astride his Bidet, beating him up to it as he would have beat his drum.

The Bidet flew from one side of the road to the other—then back again—then this way—then that way, and in short every way but by the dead ass—La Fleur insisted upon the thing—and the Bidet threw him.

What’s the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this Bidet of thine?—Monsieur, said he, c’est un cheval le plus opiniatré du monde.—Nay, if he is a conceited Beast he must go his own way, replied I—so La Fleur got off him, and giving him a good sound lash, the Bidet took me at my word, and away he scamper’d back to Montriul—Peste! said La Fleur.

It is not mal à propos to take notice here, that though La Fleur availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in this encounter—namely, Diable! and Peste! that there are nevertheless three, in the French language; like the positive, comparative, and superlative, one or the other of which serve for every unexpected throw of the dice in life.