at their families would be
annoyed at it. They fell back on the succour of the wounded. One
pretended to have swooned: the other rolled him away in a wheelbarrow
with the utmost precaution.

As for military escalades, the author extols the ladder of Bois-Rose, so
called from the captain who surprised Fecamp in former days by climbing
up the cliff.

In accordance with the engraving in the book, they trimmed a rope with
little sticks and fixed it under the cart-shed. As soon as the first
stick is bestridden and the third grasped, the limbs are thrown out in
order that the second, which a moment before was against the chest,
might be directly under the thighs. The climber then springs up and
grasps the fourth, and so goes on.

In spite of prodigious strainings of the hips, they found it impossible
to reach the second step. Perhaps there is less trouble in hanging on to
stones with your hands, just as Bonaparte's soldiers did at the attack
of Fort Chambray? and to make one capable of such an action, Amoros has
a tower in his establishment.

The wall in ruins might do as a substitute for it. They attempted the
assault with it. But Bouvard, having withdrawn his foot too quickly from
a hole, got frightened, and was seized with dizziness.

Pecuchet blamed their method for it. They had neglected that which
relates to the phalanxes, so that they should go back to first
principles.

His exhortations were fruitless; and then, in his pride and presumption,
he went in for stilts.

Nature seemed to have destined him for them, for he immediately made use
of the great model with flat boards four feet from the ground, and,
balanced thereon, he stalked over the garden like a gigantic stork
taking exercise.

Bouvard, at the window, saw him stagger and then flop down all of a heap
over the kidney-beans, whose props, giving way as he descended, broke
his fall.

He was picked up covered with mould, his nostrils bleeding--livid; and
he fancied that he had strained himself.

Decidedly, gymnastics did not agree with men of their age. They
abandoned them, did not venture to move about any longer for fear of
accidents, and they remained the whole day sitting in the museum
dreaming of other occupations.

This change of habits had an influence on Bouvard's health. He became
very heavy, puffed like a whale after his meals, tried to make himself
thin, ate less, and began to grow weak.

Pecuchet, in like manner, felt himself "undermine