"All right, all right," said the old fellow. "I know my business. I've driven _the general._"
The general was my father; for, you see, I was in my native country here.
"All right; if you have driven my father, you know he liked fast driving. I take after him."
"Oh!" said the postillion I was leaving behind, "I pity you, M. Dumas. You have a bad customer to deal with."
"I hope so. _Bon voyage!_ Come, off you go, Levasseur; put a little quicksilver in your boots!"
"Levasseur," I shouted to him, "I told you three francs for yourself if we reach Levignan by half-past eight."
"If we don't get there by half-past eight we shall by nine. I know my business."
"You understand," I repeated, "I will be at Levignan by half-past eight."
"There is no longer a king.... Come, come. Quicker, quicker!"
"Let us climb the rise first, and then we will see about that."
So we climbed the rise, and then old Levasseur put his horses to the trot.
"Oh! Levasseur, this won't do at all," I said.
"By the rules, deuce take it! I know my business, you bet!" "Look here, Levasseur ..."
The carriage stopped; I got out, and I cut a branch from an elm by the roadside.
"Look here," he said, looking on with great uneasiness, "you are not cutting off that switch to whip my horses with, I hope?"
"Make yourself easy on that score, Levasseur," I said, as I got back into the carriage. "Go on!"
"It is all very well to say go on; but have you cut that stick to beat my horses with is what I want to know?"
"Oh! we shall see about that, shall we? I'm not afraid of you because you have a gun."
"Look here, Levasseur, you know your business as a postillion, don't you?"
"Well, then, I too know mine as a traveller.... Your notion, it would seem, is to go as slowly as possible, while mine is to go as fast as I can. We will see which of us is the stronger."
"We will see whatever you like, I don't care."
I drew out my watch. "You have two minutes in which to make up your mind."
"You shall, Levasseur, take my word for it."
He began to strike up the lament of Saint Roch. While all this was taking place we had been going at a slow trot.
"Look here, Levasseur," I said, at the end of the first couplet, "I warn you that one minute has gone already."