lateau of that gray dawn but Tartarin
and the Alpine horn-player, who continued to blow a melancholy note
through his huge instrument, like a dog baying the moon.

He was a short old man, with a long beard, wearing a Tyrolese hat
adorned with green woollen tassels that hung down upon his back and,
in letters of gold, the words (common to all the hats and caps in the
service of the hotel) _Regina Montium_. Tartarin went up to give him a
pourboire, as he had seen all the other tourists do. "Let us go to
bed again, my old friend," he said, tapping him on the shoulder with
Tarasconese familiarity. "A fine humbug, _que!_ the sunrise on the
Rigi."

The old man continued to blow into his horn, concluding his ritornelle
in three notes with a mute laugh that wrinkled the corners of his eyes
and shook the green glands of his head-gear.

Tartarin, in spite of all, did not regret his night. That meeting with
the pretty blonde repaid him for his loss of sleep, for, though nigh
upon fifty, he still had a warm heart, a romantic imagination, a glowing
hearthstone of life. Returning to bed, and shutting his eyes to make
himself go to sleep, he fancied he felt in his hand that dainty little
shoe, and heard again the gentle call of the fair young girl: "Is it
you, Manilof?"

Sonia... what a pretty name!.. She was certainly Russian; and those
young men were travelling with her; friends of her brother, no doubt.

Then all grew hazy; the pretty face in its golden curls joined the other
floating visions,--Rigi slopes, cascades like plumes of feathers,--and
soon the heroic breathing of the great man, sonorous and rhythmical,
filled the little room and the greater part of the long corridor...

The next morning, before descending at the first gong for breakfast,
Tartarin was about to make sure that his beard was well brushed, and
that he himself did not look too badly in his Alpine costume, when,
all of a sudden, he quivered. Before him, open, and gummed to his
looking-glass by two wafers, was an anonymous letter, containing the
following threats:--

"_Devil of a Frenchman, your queer old clothes do not conceal you.
You are forgiven once more for this attempt; but if you cross our path
again, beware!_"

Bewildered, he read this two or three times over without understanding
it. Of whom, of what must he beware? How came that letter there?
Evidently during his sleep; for he did not see it on returning from his
auroral promenade. He rang f