was going home for his gun.

Gradually, however, Tartarin's bearing restored courage. With head
erect, the intrepid Tarasconian slowly and calmly made the circuit
of the booth, passing the seal's tank without stopping, glancing
disdainfully on the long box filled with sawdust in which the boa
would digest its raw fowl, and going to take his stand before the
lion's cage.

A terrible and solemn confrontation, this! The lion of Tarascon and
the lion of Africa face to face!

On the one part, Tartarin erect, with his hamstrings in tension, and
his arms folded on his gun barrel; on the other, the lion, a gigantic
specimen, humped up in the straw, with blinking orbs and brutish
mien, resting his huge muzzle and tawny full-bottomed wig on his
forepaws. Both calm in their gaze.

Singular thing! whether the needle-gun had given him "the needle,"
if the popular idiom is admissible, or that he scented an enemy of
his race, the lion, who had hitherto regarded the Tarasconians with
sovereign scorn, and yawned in their faces, was all at once affected
by ire. At first he sniffed; then he growled hollowly, stretching out
his claws; rising, he tossed his head, shook his mane, opened a
capacious maw, and belched a deafening roar at Tartarin.

A yell of fright responded, as Tarascon precipitated itself madly
towards the exit, women and children, lightermen, cap-poppers,
even the brave Commandant Bravida himself. But, alone, Tartarin
of Tarascon had not budged. There he stood, firm and resolute,