“Let’s talk about it,” said the Boy.  “It may warm us, just to remember.”

“Are you very cold?”

“Not so ve-r-y.”

“Your teeth are chattering in your head.  Stop, we’ll have our overcoats out of the packs.”

“I don’t want mine.”

“Nonsense; you must have it.”

“To tell the truth, I haven’t got it with me.  I gave it to the upstairs waiter at Chamounix.  He told me a lot about himself, and he was in trouble, poor fellow; he’d been discharged for some fault or other, and was so poor that he was going to walk home, in the farthest part of Switzerland.  You see, I thought as I was on the way south, I wouldn’t need an overcoat.  I’d hardly ever wanted it so far, and the waiter was a small, slim chap, not much bigger than I am.  Anyhow, we shall soon be at the hotel now, and we can walk fast.”

He looked so white and spirit-like in the mist, with his big bright eyes made brighter by the tired shadows underneath, that I would not discourage him with the truth.  If I had said that I feared we were lost in the mist, and perhaps might not reach the hotel for hours, he would have realised all his weariness and suffering.  I made him wait, however, and when the ghostly procession of man, woman, and beasts had trailed up to us, I ordered a stop for Finois to be unloaded, that my overcoat might be unearthed.

In place of the workmanlike pack which the mule might have borne, had I not insisted on fulfilling a rash vow, my luggage was contained in twin brown hold-alls bought at Martigny, and covered with a waterproof cloth which was the property of Joseph.

Both these abominable rolls had to be taken off Finois’ back and laid upon the whitened grass, as I had forgotten in which one was stuffed the coat that I had not worn for many days.  Now at this bitter moment, could my valet but have known it, he had his full revenge.  I longed for him as a thirsty traveller in the desert longs for a spring of water.  Yet I knew, deep down in my desolate heart, that Locker would not have been able to cope with this crisis.  In cities, he was more efficient than most of his kind, but the Unusual was a bugbear to him; and, lost in a freezing mountain mist, he would have lain down to die with my horrible hold-alls still strapped and bulging.  It is a strange thing that most servants would consider themselves deeply injured if asked to bear half the hardships which their masters cheerfully undergo for the sheer fun of the thing.

Joseph came to my rescue, but, with all the good will in the world, he complicated matters.  Finois, Fanny, and Souris pressed nearer, hoping for something to eat, and the two donkeys, discouraged and disheartened by the unexpected cold, were piteous, shivering objects, with their velvet hair bristling on end, their little legs knocking together.  Even their faces seemed to have shrunk, and Fanny was all eyes and grey spectacles.