“A coach like that which runs to Beaumont, hey?  Flaming! painted red and gold to make Touchard burst with envy!  It takes three horses!  I have bought a mate for Rougeot, and Bichette will go finely in unicorn.  Come, harness up!” added Pierrotin, glancing out towards the street, and stuffing the tobacco into his clay pipe.  “I see a lady and lad over there with packages under their arms; they are coming to the Lion d’Argent, for they’ve turned a deaf ear to the coucous.  Tiens, tiens! seems to me I know that lady for an old customer.”

“You’ve often started empty, and arrived full,” said his porter, still by way of consolation.

“But no parcels!  Twenty good Gods!  What a fate!”

And Pierrotin sat down on one of the huge stone posts which protected the walls of the building from the wheels of the coaches; but he did so with an anxious, reflective air that was not habitual with him.

This conversation, apparently insignificant, had stirred up cruel anxieties which were slumbering in his breast.  What could there be to trouble the heart of Pierrotin in a fine new coach?  To shine upon “the road,” to rival the Touchards, to magnify his own line, to carry passengers who would compliment him on the conveniences due to the progress of coach-building, instead of having to listen to perpetual complaints of his “sabots” (tires of enormous width),—­such was Pierrotin’s laudable ambition; but, carried away with the desire to outstrip his comrade on the line, hoping that the latter might some day retire and leave to him alone the transportation to Isle-Adam, he had gone too far.  The coach was indeed ordered from Barry, Breilmann, and Company, coach-builders, who had just substituted square English springs for those called “swan-necks,” and other old-fashioned French contrivances.  But these hard and distrustful manufacturers would only deliver over the diligence in return for coin.  Not particularly pleased to build a vehicle which would be difficult to sell if it remained upon their hands, these long-headed dealers declined to undertake it at all until Pierrotin had made a preliminary payment of two thousand francs.  To satisfy this precautionary demand, Pierrotin had exhausted all his resources and all his credit.  His wife, his father-in-law, and his friends had bled.  This superb diligence he had been to see the evening before at the painter’s; all it needed now was to be set a-rolling, but to make it roll, payment in full must, alas! be made.

Now, a thousand francs were lacking to Pierrotin, and where to get them he did not know.  He was in debt to the master of the Lion d’Argent; he was in danger of his losing his two thousand francs already paid to the coach-builder, not counting five hundred for the mate to Rougeot, and three hundred for new harnesses, on which he had a three-months’ credit.  Driven by the fury of despair and the madness of vanity, he had just openly declared that the new coach was to start on the morrow.  By offering fifteen hundred francs, instead of the two thousand five hundred still due, he was in hopes that the softened carriage-builders would give him his coach.  But after a few moments’ meditation, his feelings led him to cry out aloud:—­