HERNANI _(with indignation)... dans ces efforts sublimes_ _'Qu'avez
vous a offrir?'
RUY BLAS _(simply) Huit francs et dix centimes!_
Or finally (for this kind of thing cannot go on for ever), one might
curl one's hair and dye it black, and cock a dirty slouch hat over one
ear and take a guitar and sit on a flat stone by the roadside and
cross one's legs, and, after a few pings and pongs on the strings,
strike up a Ballad with the refrain -
_Car j'ai toujours huit francs et dix centimes!_ a jocular,
sub-sardonic, a triumphant refrain!
But all this is by the way; the point is, why was the eight francs and
ten centimes of such importance just there and then?
For this reason, that I could get no more money before Milan; and I
think a little reflection will show you what a meaning lies in that
phrase. Milan was nearer ninety miles than eighty miles off. By the
strict road it was over ninety. And so I was forced to consider and to
be anxious, for how would this money hold out?
There was nothing for it but forced marches, and little prospect of
luxuries. But could it be done?
I thought it could, and I reasoned this way.
'It is true I need a good deal of food, and that if a man is to cover
great distances he must keep fit.
