zled beard, he slipped away,
covertly escaping Madame Schwanthaler, who was seeking to hook him again
ever since that initial waltz.

He took his key and his bedroom candle; then, on the first landing, he
paused a moment to enjoy his work and to look at the mass of congealed
ones whom he had forced to thaw and amuse themselves.

A Swiss maid approached him all breathless from the waltz, and said,
presenting a pen and the hotel register:--

"Might I venture to ask t_mossie_ to be so good as to sign his name?"

He hesitated a moment. Should he, or should he not preserve his
incognito?

After all, what matter! Supposing that the news of his presence on the
Rigi should reach _down there_, no one would know what he had come to
do in Switzerland. And besides, it would be so droll to see, to-morrow
morning, the stupor of those "Inglichemans" when they should learn the
truth... For that Swiss girl, of course, would not hold her tongue...
What surprise, what excitement throughout the hotel!..

"Was it really he?.. he?.. himself?.." These reflections, rapid and
vibrant, passed through his head like the notes of a violin in an
orchestra. He took the pen, and with careless hand he signed, beneath
Schwanthaler, Astier-Rehu, and other notabilities, the name that
eclipsed them all, his name; then he went to his room, without so much
as glancing round to see the effect, of which he was sure.

Behind him the Swiss maid looked at the name:

TARTARIN OF TARASCON,

beneath which was added:

P. C. A.

She read it, that Bernese girl, and was not the least dazzled. She did
not know what P. C. A. signified, nor had she ever heard of "Dardarin."

Barbarian, _Vai!_

II.

Tarascon, five minutes' stop! The Club of the Alpines.
Explanation of P. C. A. Rabbits of warren and cabbage
rabbits. This is my last will and testament. The Sirop de
cadavre. First ascension, Tartarin takes out his spectacles.

When that name "Tarascon" sounds trumpetlike along the track of the
Paris-Lyons-Mediterranean, in the limpid, vibrant blue of a Provencal
sky, inquisitive heads are visible at all the doors of the express
train, and from carriage to carriage the travellers say to each other:
"Ah! here is Tarascon!.. Now, for a look at Tarascon."

What they can see of it is, nevertheless, nothing more than a very
ordinary, quiet, clean little town with towers, roofs, and a bridge
across the Rhone. But the Tarasconese sun and