, belly up. Tartarin's expedition had a put a stopper on
everything.

Ah, you ought to have seen his success in the parlours. He was snatched
away by one from another, fought for, loaned and borrowed, ay, stolen.
There was no greater honour for the ladies than to go to Mitaine's
Menagerie on Tartarin's arms, and have it explained before the lion's
den how such large game are hunted, where they should be aimed at, at
how many paces off; if the accidents were numerous, and the like of
that.

Tartarin furnished all the elucidation desired. He had read "The Life of
Jules Gerard, the Lion-Slayer," and had lion-hunting at his finger ends,
as if he had been through it himself. Hence he orated upon these matters
with great eloquence.

But where he shone the brightest was at dinner at Chief Judge
Ladeveze's, or brave Commandant Bravida's (the former captain in the
Army Clothing Factory, you will keep in mind), when coffee came in, and
all the chairs were brought up closer together, whilst they chatted of
his future hunts.

Thereupon, his elbow on the cloth, his nose over his Mocha, our hero
would discourse in a feeling tone of all the dangers awaiting him
thereaway. He spoke of the long moonless night lyings-in-wait, the
pestilential fens, the rivers envenomed by leaves of poison-plants,
the deep snow-drifts, the scorching suns, the scorpions, and rains of
grasshoppers; he also descanted on the peculiarities of the great lions
of the Atlas, their way of fighting, their phenomenal vigour; and their
ferocity in the mating season.

Heating with his own recital, he would rise from table, bounding to the
middle of the dining-room, imitating the roar of a lion and the
going off of a rifle crack! bang! the zizz of the explosive
bullet--gesticulating and roaring about till he had overset the chairs.

Everybody turned pale around the board: the gentlemen looking at one
another and wagging their heads, the ladies shutting their eyes with
pretty screams of fright, the elderly men combatively brandishing their
canes; and, in the side apartments, the little boys, who had been put to
bed betimes, were greatly startled by the sudden outcries and imitated
gun-fire, and screamed for lights. Meanwhile, Tartarin did not start.

XI. "Let's have it out with swords gentleman, not pins!"

A DELICATE question: whether Tartarin really had any intention of going,
and one which the historian of Tartarin would be highly embarrassed to
answe