o sit there,
and even they were not allowed to get in until at some distance beyond
the "barriere." The occupants of the "hen-roost" (the name given by
conductors to this section of their vehicles) were made to get down
outside of every village or town where there was a post of gendarmerie;
the overloading forbidden by law, "for the safety of passengers,"
being too obvious to allow the gendarme on duty--always a friend to
Pierrotin--to avoid the necessity of reporting this flagrant violation
of the ordinances. Thus on certain Saturday nights and Monday mornings,
Pierrotin's coucou "trundled" fifteen travellers; but on such occasions,
in order to drag it along, he gave his stout old horse, called Rougeot,
a mate in the person of a little beast no bigger than a pony, about
whose merits he had much to say. This little horse was a mare named
Bichette; she ate little, she was spirited, she was indefatigable, she
was worth her weight in gold.

"My wife wouldn't give her for that fat lazybones of a Rougeot!" cried
Pierrotin, when some traveller would joke him about his epitome of a
horse.

The difference between this vehicle and the other consisted chiefly
in the fact that the other was on four wheels. This coach, of comical
construction, called the "four-wheel-coach," held seventeen travellers,
though it was bound not to carry more than fourteen. It rumbled so
noisily that the inhabitants of Isle-Adam frequently said, "Here comes
Pierrotin!" when he was scarcely out of the forest which crowns the
slope of the valley. It was divided into two lobes, so to speak: one,
called the "interior," contained six passengers on two seats; the other,
a sort of cabriolet constructed in front, was called the "coupe." This
coupe was closed in with very inconvenient and fantastic glass sashes,
a description of which would take too much space to allow of its
being given here. The four-wheeled coach was surmounted by a hooded
"imperial," into which Pierrotin managed to poke six passengers; this
space was inclosed by leather curtains. Pierrotin himself sat on an
almost invisible seat perched just below the sashes of the coupe.

The master of the establishment paid the tax which was levied upon all
public conveyances on his coucou only, which was rated to carry six
persons; and he took out a special permit each time that he drove the
four-wheeler. This may seem extraordinary in these days, but when the
tax on vehicles was first imposed, it was