The coachman drove up to the curb and Jefferson jumped down,
assisting Shirley to alight. In spite of Shirley's protest
Jefferson insisted on paying.

"_Combien?_" he asked the _cocher_.

The jehu, a surly, thick-set man with a red face and small,
cunning eyes like a ferret, had already sized up his fares for two
_sacré_ foreigners whom it would be flying in the face of
Providence not to cheat, so with unblushing effrontery he
answered:

"_Dix francs, Monsieur!_" And he held up ten fingers by way of
illustration.

Jefferson was about to hand up a ten-franc piece when Shirley
indignantly interfered. She would not submit to such an
imposition. There was a regular tariff and she would pay that and
nothing more. So, in better French than was at Jefferson's
command, she exclaimed:

"Ten francs? _Pourquoi dix francs?_ I took your cab by the hour.
It is exactly two hours. That makes four francs." Then to
Jefferson she added: "Give him a franc for a _pourboire_--that
makes five francs altogether."

Jefferson, obedient to her superior wisdom, held out a five-franc
piece, but the driver shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. He saw
that the moment had come to bluster so he descended from his box