In Tartarin's mouth, the title of Merchant Prince thundered out as
something stunning!

The house of Garcio-Camus had the further advantage of
sometimes being favoured with a call from the Tartars. Then the
doors would be slammed shut, all the clerks flew to arms, up ran
the consular flag, and zizz! phit! bang! out of the windows upon
the Tartars.

I need not tell you with what enthusiasm Quixote-Tartarin clutched
this proposition; sad to say, Sancho-Tartarin did not see it in the
same light, and, as he was the stronger party, it never came to
anything. But in the town there was much talk about it. Would he
go or would he not? "I'll lay he will!" -- and "I'll wager he won't!"
It was the event of the week. In the upshot, Tartarin did not
depart, but the matter redounded to his credit none the less. Going
or not going to Shanghai was all one to Tarascon. Tartarin's
journey was so much talked about that people got to believe he had
done it and returned, and at the club in the evening members would
actually ask for information on life at Shanghai, the manners and
customs and climate, about opium, and commerce.

Deeply read up, Tartarin would graciously furnish the particulars
desired, and, in the end, the good fellow was not quite sure himself
about not having gone to Shanghai, so that, after relating for the
hundredth time how the Tartars came down on the trading post, it
would most naturally happen him to add:

"Then I made my men take up arms and hoist the consular flag, and
zizz! phit! bang! out of the windows upon the Tartars."