gn of leaving for Africa... did he really
have any intention of going? That is a delicate question and one to
which his biographer would find difficulty in replying. The fact is that
the menagerie had now been gone for three months but the killer of lions
had not budged... could it be that our innocent hero, blinded perhaps
by a new mirage, honestly believed that he had been to Africa, and
by talking so much about his hunting expedition believed that it had
actually taken place. Unfortunately, if this was the case and Tartarin
had once more fallen victim to the mirage, the people of Tarascon had
not. When it was observed that after three months of waiting the hunter
had not packed a single bag, people began to talk.

"This will turn out to be another Shanghai." Said Costecalde, smiling,
and this remark spread round the town like wildfire, for people had lost
their belief in Tartarin. The ignorant, the chicken-hearted, people like
Bezuquet, whom a flea could put to flight, and who could not fire a gun
without closing both eyes, these above all were pitiless. At the club,
on the esplanade, they accosted poor Tartarin with little mocking
remarks, "Et autremain, what about this trip then?" At Costecalde's
shop his opinion was no longer law. The hat hunters had deserted their
leader.

Then there were the epigrams. President Ladeveze who in his spare time
dabbled in provencal poetry, composed a little song in dialect which
was a great success. It concerned a certain hunter named master Gervaise
whose redoubtable rifle was to exterminate every last lion in Africa.
Sadly this rifle had a singular fault, although always loaded it never
went off.... It never went off... you will understand the allusion. This
song achieved instant popularity, and when Tartarin was passing, the
stevedores on the quay and the grubby urchins hanging round his door
would chant this insulting little ditty... only they sang it from a safe
distance because of the double muscles.

The great man himself pretended to see nothing, to hear nothing.
Although at heart this underhand, venomous campaign hurt him deeply, in
spite of his suffering, he continued to go about his life with a smile;
but sometimes the mask of cheerful indifference which pride had pinned
on his features slipped, then instead of laughter one saw indignation
and grief. So it was one morning when some street urchins were chanting
their jeers beneath the window of the room where our poor h