keepers, alarmed by this infraction of local habits, were lost in
suppositions of all possible kinds.

At home, in his exotic garden, he practised the art of leaping
crevasses, by jumping over the basin in which a few gold-fish were
swimming about among the water-weeds. On two occasions he fell in, and
was forced to change his clothes. Such mishaps inspired him only the
more, and, being subject to vertigo, he practised walking on the
narrow masonry round the edge of the water, to the terror of his old
servant-woman, who understood nothing of these performances.

During this time, he ordered, _in Avignon_, from an excellent locksmith,
crampons of the Whymper pattern, and a Kennedy ice-axe; also he procured
himself a reed-wick lamp, two impermeable coverlets, and two hundred
feet of rope of his own invention, woven with iron wire.

The arrival of these different articles from Avignon, the mysterious
goings and comings which their construction required, puzzled the
Taras-conese much, and it was generally said about town: "The president
is preparing a stroke." But what? Something grand, you may be sure, for,
in the beautiful words of the brave and sententious Commander Bravida,
retired captain of equipment, who never spoke except in apothegms:
"Eagles hunt no flies."

With his closest intimates Tartarin remained impenetrable. Only, at the
sessions of the Club, they noticed the quivering of his voice and
the lightning flash of his eyes whenever he addressed Costecalde--the
indirect cause of this new expedition, the dangers and fatigues of which
became more pronounced to his mind the nearer he approached it. The
unfortunate man did not attempt to disguise them; in fact he took so
black a view of the matter that he thought it indispensable to set his
affairs in order, to write those last wishes, the expression of which
is so trying to the Tarasconese, lovers of life, that most of them die
intestate.

On a radiant morning in June, beneath a cloudless arched and splendid
sky, the door of his study open upon the neat little garden with
its gravelled paths, where the exotic plants stretched forth their
motionless lilac shadows, where the fountain tinkled its silvery note
'mid the merry shouts of the Savoyards, playing at marbles before the
gate, behold Tartarin! in Turkish slippers, wide flannel under-garments,
easy in body, his pipe at hand, reading aloud as he wrote the words:--

"This is my last will and testament."

Ha