f the moustache. His collar was
incredibly tall and shiny, with turn-down points; he wore a red tie;
his thick brown clothes might have been bought ready made in the
Edgeware Road; evidently he had honoured the occasion with his Sunday
best. While his comrades jabbered together, in patois which flung in a
French word now and then, like a sop to Cerberus, he spoke not a word;
yet I saw his lips tighten, as he laid his arm over the neck of a
small but well-built mule of a colour which matched its master's
clothing. The animal rubbed a brown velvet head against the brown
waistcoat which, perhaps, covered a fast-beating heart. From that
instant I knew that this was my man, and this my mule, as certainly as
if they had been tattooed with my family crest and truculent motto:
"What I will, I take."

"You've been a soldier, haven't you?" I asked the muleteer in French.

He saluted as he replied that he had, and that for several years he
had served a French general, as orderly. His name was Joseph Marcoz,
and--he added--he was a Protestant.

"And your mule?" I asked.

"Finois, Monsieur."

"Ah, but his persuasion? He is Protestant, too?" If Joseph had looked
puzzled, I should have been disappointed, but a spark of humour lit
the gloom of his sombre eye. "Finois is Pantheist, I think you call
it, Monsieur. I am persuaded that he has a soul, for which there will
be a place in the Beyond; and if he goes there first, I hope that he
will be looking out for me."

It seemed a sudden drop, after this preface, to turn to bargaining.
The landlord made the break for me, however, when he saw that I had
set my mind upon Marcoz and his Finois. It then appeared that Joseph
was not his own master, but worked for the real owner of Finois and
other mules. The price he would have to ask for such a journey as I
proposed was twenty-five francs a day. This would include the services
of man and mule, food for the one, and fodder for the other. Without
any beating down, I accepted the terms proposed, and the only part of
the arrangement left in doubt was the time of starting. It was not
eight o'clock, yet already the diligences and private carriages going
over the Grand St. Bernard had departed with a jingling of bells and
sharp cracking of whips which had first informed me that it was day.
With me, it was different, however. Speed was no longer my aim. I
would not be in a hurry about arriving anywhere, and when I learned
that there were a coupl