Page:Three stories by Vítězslav Hálek (1886).pdf/146

 until the other carter caught him up. When their chat was over, Poldik had to overtake his own horses, and perhaps they might be thirty paces or thereabouts in advance. Such moments necessarily stirred both his blood and his stumps, and for thirty paces he had matters for reflection as to how he had lagged behind, how he had fatigued himself, and whether it was worth the while.

Such pauses and delays did not occur frequently. Poldik had no great need of them.

Not only was his step measured, vacillating and swaying his whole character was equally measured vacillating and swaying. All his thoughts and conceptions were so in their inception and concludings. It must be something of extreme importance, in fact, of absolute necessity which should cause Poldik to halt and wait for his follower and cart to catch him up and enter into conversation. In general he managed to learn what he wished to know by looks alone, and seldom had recourse to words. A whole dialogue was thus disposed of as they passed one another or trailed after one another, merely by means of glances. Thus one of his mates had a white horse that limped on Saturday. Poldik saw them again on Monday, and the white horse no longer limped. He glanced at the happy possessor of the beast, and this glance meant “the white horse has soon recovered.” The other glanced at Poldik, infused a certain smug satisfaction into his look, and this look