nts kept him in a perpetual stew of wrath and
exaltation. His revolvers, repeating rifles, and ducking-guns shouted
"Battle! battle!" out of their mouths. Through the twigs of his baobab,
the tempest of great voyages and journeys soughed and blew bad advice.
To finish him came Gustave Aimard, Mayne Reid, and Fenimore Cooper.

Oh, how many times did Tartarin with a howl spring up on the sultry
summer afternoons, when he was reading alone amidst his blades, points,
and edges; how many times did he dash down his book and rush to the wall
to unhook a deadly arm! The poor man forgot he was at home in Tarascon,
in his underclothes, and with a handkerchief round his head. He would
translate his readings into action, and, goading himself with his own
voice, shout out whilst swinging a battle-axe or tomahawk:

"Now, only let 'em come!"

"Them"? who were they?

Tartarin did not himself any too clearly understand. "They" was all
that should be attacked and fought with, all that bites, claws, scalps,
whoops, and yells--the Sioux Indians dancing around the war-stake to
which the unfortunate pale-face prisoner is lashed. The grizzly of the
Rocky Mountains, who wobbles on his hind legs, and licks himself with a
tongue full of blood. The Touareg, too, in the desert, the Malay pirate,
the brigand of the Abruzzi--in short, "they" was warfare, travel,
adventure, and glory.

But, alas!! it was to no avail that the fearless Tarasconer called for
and defied them; never did they come. Odsboddikins! what would they have
come to do in Tarascon?

Nevertheless Tartarin always expected to run up against them,
particularly some evening in going to the club.

V. How Tartarin went round to his club.

LITTLE, indeed, beside Tartarin of Tarascon, arming himself capa-pie
to go to his club at nine, an hour after the retreat had sounded on the
bugle, was the Templar Knight preparing for a sortie upon the infidel,
the Chinese tiger equipping himself for combat, or the Comanche warrior
painting up for going on the war-path. "All hands make ready for
action!" as the men-of-war's men say.

In his left hand Tartarin took a steel-pointed knuckle-duster; in the
right he carried a sword-cane; in his left pocket a life-preserver; in
the right a revolver. On his chest, betwixt outer and under garment,
lay a Malay kreese. But never any poisoned arrows--they are weapons
altogether too unfair.

Before starting, in the silence and obscurity of his stu