"It is just that," said I.
"You see," she added to her husband, "I understood that."
They were both much interested by the story of my misadventures.
"In the morning," said the husband, "I will make you something better than your cane. Such a beast as that feels nothing; it is in the proverb—dur comme un âne; you might beat her insensible with a cudgel, and yet you would arrive nowhere."
Something better! I little knew what he was offering.
The sleeping-room was furnished with two beds. I had one; and I will own I was a little abashed to find a young man and his wife and child in the act of mounting into the other. This was my first experience of the sort; and if I am always to feel equally silly and extraneous, I pray God it be my last as well. I kept my eyes to myself, and know nothing of the woman except that she had beautiful arms, and seemed no whit abashed by my appearance. As a matter of fact, the situation was
