elfishly saving himself, by the throat: "To your duty,
wretch!.. "At six months old, _outre!_... Wearisome, to tell the truth,
with that eternal tale which everybody was sick of for the last fifty
years; but he took it as a pretext to assume a melancholy air, detached
from life: "After what I have seen!" he would say--very unjustly,
because it was to that he owed his post as collector and kept it 'under
all administrations.

Near him sat the brothers Rognonas, twins and sexagenarians, who never
parted, but always quarrelled and said the most monstrous things to
each other; their two old heads, defaced, corroded, irregular, and ever
looking in opposite directions out of antipathy, were so alike that they
might have figured in a collection of coins with IANVS BIFRONS on the
exergue.

Here and there, were Judge Bedaride, Barjavel the lawyer, the notary
Cambalalette, and the terrible Doctor Tournatoire, of whom Bravida
remarked that he could draw blood from a radish.

In consequence of the great heat, increased by the gas, these gentlemen
held the session in their shirt-sleeves, which detracted much from the
solemnity of the occasion. It is true that the meeting was a very
small one; and the infamous Costecalde was anxious to profit by that
circumstance to fix the earliest possible date for the elections without
awaiting Tartarin's return. Confident in this manoeuvre, he was enjoying
his triumph in advance, and when, after the reading of the minutes by
Excourbanies, he rose to insinuate his scheme, an infernal smile curled
up the corners of his thin lips.

"Distrust the man who smiles before he speaks," murmured the Commander.

Costecalde, not flinching, and winking with one eye at the faithful
Tournatoire, began in a spiteful voice:--

"Gentlemen, the extraordinary conduct of our president, the uncertainty
in which he leaves us..."

"False!.. The president has written..."

Bezuquet, quivering, planted himself squarely before the table; but
conscious that his attitude was anti-parliamentary, he changed his tone,
and, raising one hand according to usage, he asked for the floor, to
make an urgent communication.

"Speak! Speak!"

Costecalde, very yellow, his throat tightened, gave him the floor by a
motion of his head. Then, and not till then, Bezuquet spoke:

"Tartarin is at the foot of the Jungfrau... he is about to make the
ascent... he desires to take with him our banner..."

Silence; broken by the heavy bre