For, by an
irony on nature, that indomitable warrior was called Placide, and that
rough buffalo, with all his instincts material, Spiridion.

Unhappily, the Tarasconese race, more gallant than sentimental, never
takes its love-affairs very seriously. "Whoso loses a woman and ten
sous, is to be pitied about the money..." replied the sententious
Placide to Tartarin's tale, and Spiridion thought exactly like him. As
for the innocent Pascalon, he was horribly afraid of women, and reddened
to the ears when the name of the Little Scheideck was uttered before
him, thinking some lady of flimsy morals was referred to. The poor lover
was therefore reduced to keep his confidences to himself, and console
himself alone--which, after all, is the surest way.

But what grief could have resisted the attractions of the way through
that narrow, deep and sombre valley, where they walked on the banks of
a winding river all white with foam, rumbling with an echo like thunder
among the pine-woods which skirted both its shores.

The Tarasconese delegation, their heads in the air, advanced with a sort
of religious awe and admiration, like the comrades of Sinbad the Sailor
when they stood before the mangoes, the cotton-trees, and all the giant
flora of the Indian coasts. Knowing nothing but their own little bald
and stony mountains they had never imagined there could be so many trees
together or such tall ones.

"That is nothing, as yet... wait till you see the Jungfrau," said the P.
C. A., who enjoyed their amazement and felt himself magnified in their
eyes.

At the same time, as if to brighten the scene and humanize its solemn
note, cavalcades went by them, great landaus going at full speed, with
veils floating from the doorways where curious heads leaned out to look
at the delegation pressing round its president. From point to point
along the roadside were booths spread with knick-knacks of carved wood,
while young girls, stiff in their laced bodices, their striped skirts
and broad-brimmed straw hats, were offering bunches of strawberries and
edelweiss. Occasionally, an Alpine horn sent among the mountains its
melancholy ritornello, swelling, echoing from gorge to gorge, and slowly
diminishing, like a cloud that dissolves into vapour.

"'T is fine, 't is like an organ," murmured Pascalon, his eyes
moist, in ecstasy, like the stained-glass saint of a church window.
Excourbanies roared, undiscouraged, and the echoes repeated, till sight