The good man, however, seemed
as grateful as if I had done something, wished all sorts of happiness
to me and my children, and so we parted. Peace go with him in his
Chamouni cottage.
JOURNAL - (CONTINUED.)
Saturday, July 9. Rose in a blaze of glory. Rode five mortal hours in
a _char-a-banc_, sweltering under a burning sun. But in less than
ten minutes after we mounted the mules and struck into the gorge, the
ladies muffled themselves in thick shawls. We seemed to have passed,
almost in a moment, from the tropics into the frigid zone. A fur cloak
was suggested to me, but as it happened I was adequately calorified
without. Chancing to be the last in the file, my mule suddenly stopped
to eat.
"_Allez_, _allez_!" said I, twitching the bridle.
"I _won't_!" said he, as plainly as ears and legs could speak.
"_Allez_!" thundered I, jumping off and bestowing a kick upon his
ribs which made me suffer if it did not him.
"I _won't_!" said he, stuffily.
"Won't you?" said I, pursuing the same line of inductive argument,
with rhetorical flourishes of the bridle.
"Never!" he replied again, most mulishly.
"Then if words and kicks won't do," said I, "let us see what virtue
there is in stones;" and suiting the action to the word, I showered
him with fragments of granite, as from a catapult.
