Tartarin of Tarascon, nearly overcome, dwelt a moment scanning the fellow-passengers, comically shaken by the jolts, and dancing before him like the shadows in galanty-shows, till his eyes grew cloudy and his mind befogged, and only vaguely he heard the wheels grind and the sides of the conveyance squeak complainingly.

Suddenly a voice called Tartarin by his name, the voice of an old fairy godmother, hoarse, broken, and cracked.

“Monsieur Tartarin!” three times.

“Who’s calling me?”

“It’s I, Monsieur Tartarin.  Don’t you recognise me?  I am the old stage-coach who used to do the road betwixt Nimes and Tarascon twenty year agone.  How many times I have carried you and your friends when you went to shoot at caps over Joncquieres or Bellegarde way!  I did not know you again at the first, on account of your Turk’s cap and the flesh you have accumulated; but as soon as you began snoring —­ what a rascal is good-luck! —­ I twigged you straight away.”

“All right, that’s all right enough!” observed the Tarasconian, a shade vexed; but softening, he added, “But to the point, my poor old girl; whatever did you come out here for?”

“Pooh! my good Monsieur Tartarin, I assure you I never came of my own free will.  As soon as the Beaucaire railway was finished I was considered good for nought, and shipped away into Algeria.  And I am not the only one either!  Bless you, next to all the old stage-coaches of France have been packed off like me.  We were regarded as too much the conservative —­ ‘the slow-coaches’ —­ d’ye see, and now we are here leading the life of a dog.  This is what you in France call the Algerian railways.”

Here the ancient vehicle heaved a long-drawn sigh before proceeding.  “My wheels and linchpin!  Monsieur Tartarin, how I regret my lovely Tarascon!  That was the good time for me, when I was young! —­ You ought to have seen me starting off in the morning, washed with no stint of water and all a-shine, with my wheels freshly varnished, my lamps blazing like a brace of suns, and my boot always rubbed up with oil!  It was indeed lovely when the postillion cracked his whip to the tune of ’Lagadigadeou, the Tarasque! the Tarasque!’ and the guard, his horn in its sling and laced cap cocked well over one ear, chucking his little dog, always in a fury, upon the top, climbed up himself with a shout:  ’Right-away!’

“Then would my four horses dash off to the medley of bells, barks, and horn-blasts, and the windows fly open for all Tarascon to look with pride upon the royal mail coach dart over the king’s highway.

“What a splendid road that was, Monsieur Tartarin, broad and well kept, with its mile-stones, its little heaps of road-metal at regular distances, and its pretty clumps of vines and olive-trees on either hand!  Then, again, the roadside inns so close together, and the changes of horses every five minutes!  And what jolly, honest chaps my patrons were! —­ village mayors and parish priests going up to Nimes to see their prefect or bishop, taffety-weavers returning openly from the Mazet, collegians out on holiday leave, peasants in worked smock-frocks, all fresh shaven for the occasion that morning; and up above, on the top, you gentlemen-sportsmen, always in high spirits, and singing each your own family ballad to the stars as you came back in the dark.