“Well, aren’t we going?”
“In a moment, sir.”
The moment stretched itself out a good deal. A priest arrived, so fat that he would have filled the vehicle all alone; then a woman from the town with a basket, which she held on her knees; then the postman got in with his bag; the driver closed the little window in the coach door, and continued joking with the young man who looked a bit like a seminarian and with one of the station men.
“We are in a hurry,” said Alzugaray.
“We are going now, sir. All right. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!” answered the station man and the seminarian.
The driver got up on his seat, cracked his whip, and the vehicle began to move, with a noisy swaying and a trembling of all its wood and glass. A very thick cloud of dust arose in the road.
“Ya, ya, Coronela!” yelled the driver. “Why do you keep getting where you oughtn’t to get? Damn the mule! Montesina, I am going to give you a couple of whacks. Get on there, Coronela! Get up, get up.... All right! All right!... That’s enough.... That’s enough.... Let it alone, now! Let it alone, now!”
“What an amount of oratory that man is wasting,” exclaimed Cæsar; “he must think that the mules are going to go better for the efforts of his throat. It would be an advantage if he had stronger beasts, instead of these dying ones.”
The other travellers paid no attention to his observation, and Alzugaray said: