During the last year he had spent an extra sum of ten thousand francs in the company of artists, journalists, and their mistresses.

A confidential and rather disquieting letter from his son, asking for his consent to a marriage, explains the watch which the post master was now keeping on the bridge; for Madame Minoret-Levrault, busy in preparing a sumptuous breakfast to celebrate the triumphal return of the licentiate, had sent her husband to the mail road, advising him to take a horse and ride out if he saw nothing of the diligence.

The coach which was conveying the precious son usually arrived at five in the morning and it was now nine! What could be the meaning of such delay?
Was the coach overturned?
Could Desire be dead?
Or was it nothing worse than a broken leg?
Three distinct volleys of cracking whips rent the air like a discharge of musketry; the red waistcoats of the postilions dawned in sight, ten horses neighed.

The master pulled off his cap and waved it; he was seen.

The best mounted postilion, who was returning with two gray carriage-horses, set spurs to his beast and came on in advance of the five diligence horses and the three other carriage-horses, and soon reached his master.
"Have you seen the 'Ducler' ?" On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the different coaches; such, for instance, as the "Caillard," the "Ducler" (the coach between Nemours and Paris), the "Grand Bureau." Every new enterprise is called the "Competition." In the days of the Lecompte company their coaches were called the "Countess."-- "'Caillard' could not overtake the 'Countess'; but 'Grand Bureau' caught up with her finely," you will hear the men say.