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You see in the coupé you step right in as you would into a carriage; but you have to go up quite a long ladder to get to the banquette. I counted the steps. There were thirteen. "When I got to the office, the men were using the ladder to put up the baggage. They put the baggage on the top of the diligence, along the whole length of it behind the bellows-top.

One early dawn, Madame Delphine, with a small empty basket on her arm, stepped out upon the banquette in front of her house, shut and fastened the door very softly, and stole out in the direction whence you could faintly catch, in the stillness of the daybreak, the songs of the Gascon butchers and the pounding of their meat-axes on the stalls of the distant market-house.

"Honoré," said he, as they joined hands on the banquette beside the doctor's gig, to say good-day, "if you think there's a chance for you, why stickle upon such fine-drawn points as I reckon you are making?

It is the roomiest of all, and has, moreover, spacious untenanted spaces behind, where you may stow away your luggage; and, being the loftiest compartment, it commands the country you may happen to traverse. On this account the banquette was the place I almost always selected, unless when so unfortunate as to find it already bespoke.

Next to Rollo, on the banquette, was seated a young man, who had mounted up there about an hour before, though Rollo had not yet spoken to him. Rollo now, however, turned to him, and asked him, in English, if he spoke English. The young man smiled and shook his head, implying that he did not understand. Rollo then asked him, in French, if he spoke French. The young man said, "Nein."

A voice before us shouted out, "We must all go back to San Remo!" A silence ensued; and then our conductor got down, running forward to see what was the matter. The three in the coupé saw their alert friend of the banquette descend; which caused Velvet-cap to bestir himself, and let down the window.

Then came the light relief of a woman's gown in the opening of the lattice, the cry "Auguste, Auguste!" the wicket in the gate opened and slammed, and a man ran at top speed along the banquette towards the levee. Instinctively I seized Nick by the arm as he started out of the doorway. "Let me go," he cried angrily, "let me go, Davy." But I held on. "Are you mad?" I said.

"Yah" replied the good-natured German, who did n't understand a word. "Two places, diligence, coupe, morning. Is it full?" "Yah," replied the accommodating fellow. "Hotel man spik English." I suggested the banquette as desirable, if it could be obtained, and the German was equally willing to give it to us.

On the morning fixed by Joseph Frowenfeld for calling on M. Grandissime, on the banquette of the rue Toulouse, directly in front of an old Spanish archway and opposite a blacksmith's shop, this blacksmith's shop stood between a jeweller's store and a large, balconied and dormer-windowed wine-warehouse Aurore Nancanou, closely veiled, had halted in a hesitating way and was inquiring of a gigantic negro cartman the whereabouts of the counting-room of M. Honoré Grandissime.

He knew that he was red up to his hairs, and hot, and that his blood tingled. His blushes, indeed, would not be seen in the seclusion of the banquette; but he could not overcome the heat and the tingling. There was silence for about three minutes, and then he felt that it would be best for him to confess his own fault. "Trevelyan," he said, "I am very sorry for the allusion that I made.