Yet I knew, deep down in my desolate heart, that Locker
would not have been able to cope with this crisis. In cities, he was
more efficient than most of his kind, but the Unusual was a bugbear to
him; and, lost in a freezing mountain mist, he would have lain down to
die with my horrible hold-alls still strapped and bulging. It is a
strange thing that most servants would consider themselves deeply
injured if asked to bear half the hardships which their masters
cheerfully undergo for the sheer fun of the thing.
Joseph came to my rescue, but, with all the good will in the world, he
complicated matters. Finois, Fanny, and Souris pressed nearer, hoping
for something to eat, and the two donkeys, discouraged and
disheartened by the unexpected cold, were piteous, shivering objects,
with their velvet hair bristling on end, their little legs knocking
together. Even their faces seemed to have shrunk, and Fanny was all
eyes and grey spectacles.
I opened the hateful object which, by its tuberculous knobs, I
recognised as the one least often unpacked. It was there that I
expected to find the coat, wrapped democratically round goodness knew
how many spare boots, stockings, collars, and other small articles
which Locker would never have allowed to come within speaking distance
of each other. But, with the total depravity of inanimate things, the
coat had escaped from the hold-all.
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