"One and eightpence. What's this?"
"Ten miles, and two horses at a penny per horse per mile; isn't that
correct?"
"To the devil with your one and eightpence. Give it to the horses;
a penny a mile for a horse, and how about the man, the cart, the
harness? I gave you hay to sit on. See what fine weather it has
been! What beautiful scenery! Yonder is the church ... the wineshop,
the...."
"Hold hard, my good man. The Universe, our salvation by Christ, why
don't you charge for these as well! Here's sixpence to buy yourself a
drink."
The driver takes the sixpence and looks at it, makes a calculation,
and then blurts out:
"What! Sixpence for a man and tenpence for a horse; ai, ai, what a
_barin_ I have found. Sixpence for a man and tenpence for a horse. Bad
news, bad news! Cursed be the day...."
Here you give him another sixpence, and get out of earshot quickly.
A penny a mile a horse. It is good pay in the Caucasus, and I for my
part charge myself only a halfpenny a mile. If I walk twenty-five
miles, then I allow myself a shilling wages, and, of course, some of
that I save for the occasion when I come into a town with a great
desire for good things. Then a spending of savings and a feast!
"Good machines use little fuel," said an emaciated tramp to me one
day.
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