Part 47 (1/2)
”You are a wheelwright?”
”Certainly, sir.”
”Have you not a wheel that you can sell me? Then I could start again at once.”
”A spare wheel?”
”Yes.”
”I have no wheel on hand that would fit your cabriolet. Two wheels make a pair. Two wheels cannot be put together hap-hazard.”
”In that case, sell me a pair of wheels.”
”Not all wheels fit all axles, sir.”
”Try, nevertheless.”
”It is useless, sir. I have nothing to sell but cart-wheels. We are but a poor country here.”
”Have you a cabriolet that you can let me have?”
The wheelwright had seen at the first glance that the tilbury was a hired vehicle. He shrugged his shoulders.
”You treat the cabriolets that people let you so well! If I had one, I would not let it to you!”
”Well, sell it to me, then.”
”I have none.”
”What! not even a spring-cart? I am not hard to please, as you see.”
”We live in a poor country. There is, in truth,” added the wheelwright, ”an old calash under the shed yonder, which belongs to a bourgeois of the town, who gave it to me to take care of, and who only uses it on the thirty-sixth of the month--never, that is to say. I might let that to you, for what matters it to me? But the bourgeois must not see it pa.s.s--and then, it is a calash; it would require two horses.”
”I will take two post-horses.”
”Where is Monsieur going?”
”To Arras.”
”And Monsieur wishes to reach there to-day?”
”Yes, of course.”
”By taking two post-horses?”
”Why not?”
”Does it make any difference whether Monsieur arrives at four o'clock to-morrow morning?”
”Certainly not.”