He proved to me that it was all right, somehow, and evidently understood that his convenience, not ours, was the thing to be consulted.

The hotel is in a narrow street, and, apparently on that account, a stray passer-by was caught, and pressed into M.Paget's service to help to turn the carriage,--a feat accomplished by a bodily lifting of the hinder part, with its wheels.

After-experience showed that the narrowness of the street had nothing to with it, and we discovered that the necessity for the manoeuvre was due to a chronic affection of some portion of the voiture; so that whenever in the course of the day it became necessary for us to turn round, M.Paget was constrained to call in foreign help.
The country through which we passed was uninteresting in the extreme, although we had been told by the landlord that our drive would introduce us to a succession of natural beauties such as few countries in the world could show.

The line of hills, at the foot of which we expected our route to lie, looked exceedingly tempting as seen from Pontarlier; but, to our disappointment, we left the hills and struck across the plain.

About ten or eleven kilometres from Pontarlier, however, the character of the country changed suddenly, and we found the landlord's promise in some part fulfilled.