"Come, Deputy of the Centre, come along! We shall have to mend our
pace if we mean to sit down to dinner when every one else does, and
that's a fact! Hurry up! Jump, Marquis! That's it! Well done! You are
bounding over the furrows just like a stag!"
These words were uttered by a sportsman seated much at his ease on the
outskirts of the Foret de l'Isle-Adam; he had just finished a Havana
cigar, which he had smoked while he waited for his companion, who had
evidently been straying about for some time among the forest
undergrowth. Four panting dogs by the speaker's side likewise watched
the progress of the personage for whose benefit the remarks were made.
To make their sarcastic import fully clear, it should be added that
the second sportsman was both short and stout; his ample girth
indicated a truly magisterial corpulence, and in consequence his
progress across the furrows was by no means easy. He was striding over
a vast field of stubble; the dried corn-stalks underfoot added not a
little to the difficulties of his passage, and to add to his
discomforts, the genial influence of the sun that slanted into his
eyes brought great drops of perspiration into his face. The uppermost
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