"_Te!_ the Impostor..."

"_He!_ Gonzague... How are you?"

"_Differemment_, messieurs: your most obedient..." said the courier,
shaking hands with all, and sitting down at the table of the Tarasconese
to share with them a dish of mushrooms with garlic prepared by _mere_
Baltet, who, together with her husband had a horror of the cooking for
the _table d'hote_.

Was it the national concoction, or the joy of meeting a compatriot, that
delightful Bompard with his inexhaustible imagination? Certain it
is that weariness and the desire to sleep took wings, champagne was
uncorked, and, with moustachios all messy with froth, they laughed and
shouted and gesticulated, clasping one another round the body effusively
happy.

"I'll not leave you now, _ve!_" said Bompard. "My Peruvians have gone...
I am free..."

"Free!.. Then to-morrow you and I will ascend Mont Blanc."

"Ah! you do Mont Blanc to-morrow?" said Bompard, without enthusiasm.

"Yes, I knock out Costecalde... When he gets here, _uit!_.. No Mont Blanc
for him... You'll go, _que_, Gonzague?"

"I 'll go... I 'll go... that is, if the weather permits... The fact is,
that the mountain is not always suitable at this season."

"Ah! _vai_! not suitable indeed!.." exclaimed Tartarin, crinkling up his
eyes by a meaning laugh which Bompard seemed not to understand.

"Let us go into the salon for our coffee... We 'll consult _pere_
Baltet. He knows all about it, he 's an old guide who has made the
ascension twenty-seven times."

All the delegates cried out: "Twenty-seven times! _Boufre!_"

"Bompard always exaggerates," said the P. C. A. severely, but not
without a touch of envy.

In the salon they found the daughters of the minister still bending
over their notices, while the father and mother were asleep at their
backgammon, and the tall Swede was stirring his seltzer grog with
the same disheartened gesture. But the invasion of the Tarasconese
Alpinists, warmed by champagne, caused, as may well be supposed, some
distraction of mind to the young conventiclers. Never had those charming
young persons seen coffee taken with such rollings of the eyes and
pantomimic action.

"Sugar, Tartarin?"

"Of course not, commander... You know very well... Since Africa!.."

"True; excuse me... _Te!_ here comes M. Baltet."

"Sit down there, _que_. Monsieur Baltet."

"Vive Monsieur Baltet!.. Ha! ha! _fen de brut_."

Surrounded, captured by all these men whom he had never seen