thoughts, for I had certainly not uttered them; he came up, touched me
on the arm, and pointed round the corner. Notwithstanding the intense
heat of the day, the Wallack, for such he was, wore an enormous
sheepskin cloak with the wool outside, as though ready for an Arctic
winter. I followed him a few steps to see what he wanted me to look at;
the movement was quite enough, he regarded it evidently in the light of
ready assent, and in the twinkling of an eye he possessed himself of my
portmanteau and other belongings, motioned me to follow him, which I
did, and then found that my Heaven-sent friend had a machine for hire.

I call it a machine, because it was not like anything on wheels I had
seen before: later on I became familiar enough with the carts of the
country; they are long-bodied, rough constructions, wonderfully adapted
to the uneven roads. In this case there were four horses abreast, which
sounds imposing, as any four-in-hand must always do.

I now asked the Wallack in German if he could drive me to Oravicza, for
I saw he had made up his mind to drive me somewhere. To my relief I
found he could speak German, at all events a few words. He replied he
could drive the "high and nobly born Excellency" there in four hours.
The time was one thing, but the charge was quite another affair. His
demand was so outrageous that I supposed it was an implied compliment to
my exalted rank: certainly it had no adequate reference to the services
offered. The fellow asked enough to buy the whole concern outright--cart
and four horses! They were the smallest horses I almost ever saw, and
were further reduced by the nearest shave of being absolute skeletons;
the narrow line between sustaining life and actual starvation must have
been nicely calculated.

We now entered upon the bargaining phase, a process which threatened to