swinging a battle-axe or tomahawk:

"Now, only let 'em come!"

"Them"? who were they?

Tartarin did not himself any too clearly understand. "They" was all
that should be attacked and fought with, all that bites, claws, scalps,
whoops, and yells -- the Sioux Indians dancing around the war-
stake to which the unfortunate pale-face prisoner is lashed. The
grizzly of the Rocky Mountains, who wobbles on his hind legs, and
licks himself with a tongue full of blood. The Touareg, too, in the
desert, the Malay pirate, the brigand of the Abruzzi -- in short,
"they" was warfare, travel, adventure, and glory.

But, alas!! it was to no avail that the fearless Tarasconer called for
and defied them; never did they come. Odsboddikins! what would
they have come to do in Tarascon?

Nevertheless Tartarin always expected to run up against them,
particularly some evening in going to the club.



V.
How Tartarin went round to his club.


LITTLE, indeed, beside Tartarin of Tarascon, arming himself capa-
pie to go to his club at nine, an hour after the retreat had sounded