. He
hesitated between the Finsteraarhorn, as being the highest, and the
Jungfrau, whose pretty name of virginal whiteness made him think more
than once of the little Russian.

Ruminating on these alternatives while they made out his bill, he amused
himself in the vast, lugubrious, silent hall of the hotel by looking at
the coloured photographs hanging to the walls, representing glaciers,
snowy slopes, famous and perilous mountain passes: here, were
ascensionists in file, like ants on a quest, creeping along an icy
_arete_ sharply defined and blue; farther on was a deep crevasse, with
glaucous sides, over which was thrown a ladder, and a lady crossing it
on her knees, with an abbe after her raising his cassock.

The Alpinist of Tarascon, both hands on his ice-axe, had never, as
yet, had an idea of such difficulties; he would have to meet them, _pas
mouain!_..

Suddenly he paled fearfully.

In a black frame, an engraving from the famous drawing of Gustave Dore,
reproducing the catastrophe on the Matterhorn, met his eye. Four human
bodies on the flat of their backs or stomachs were coming headlong
down the almost perpendicular slope of a _neve_, with extended arms
and clutching hands, seeking the broken rope which held this string of
lives, and only served to drag them down to death in the gulf where the
mass was to fall pell-mell, with ropes, axes, veils, and all the gay
outfit of Alpine ascension, grown suddenly tragic.

"Awful!" cried Tartarin, speaking aloud in his horror.

A very civil maitre d'hotel heard the exclamation, and thought best
to reassure him. Accidents of that nature, he said, were becoming very
rare: the essential thing was to commit no imprudence and, above all, to
procure good guides.

Tartarin asked if he could be told of one there, "with confidence..."
Not that he himself had any fear, but it was always best to have a sure
man.

The waiter reflected, with an important air, twirling his moustache.
"With confidence?.. Ah! if monsieur had only spoken sooner; we had a man
here this morning who was just the thing... the courier of that Peruvian
family..."

"He understands the mountain?" said Tartarin, with a knowing air.

"Oh, yes, monsieur, all the mountains, in Switzerland, Savoie, Tyrol,
India, in fact, the whole world; he has done them all, he knows them
all, he can tell you all about them, and that's something!.. I think
he might easily be induced... With a man like that a child could