Horslaville, who was the last to go, asked:

"You'll invite me when the first is cooked, won't you, Toine?"

At this idea a smile overspread the fat man's face, and he answered:

"Certainly I'll invite you, my son-in-law."




MADAME HUSSON'S "ROSIER"

We had just left Gisors, where I was awakened to hearing the name of the
town called out by the guards, and I was dozing off again when a terrific
shock threw me forward on top of a large lady who sat opposite me.

One of the wheels of the engine had broken, and the engine itself lay
across the track. The tender and the baggage car were also derailed, and
lay beside this mutilated engine, which rattled, groaned, hissed, puffed,
sputtered, and resembled those horses that fall in the street with their
flanks heaving, their breast palpitating, their nostrils steaming and
their whole body trembling, but incapable of the slightest effort to rise
and start off again.

There were no dead or wounded; only a few with bruises, for the train was
not going at full speed. And we looked with sorrow at the great crippled
iron creature that could not draw us along any more, and that blocked the
track, perhaps for some time, for no doubt they would have to send to
Paris for a special train to come to our aid.