The piano in Bezuquet's shop mouldered away under a green
fungus, and the Spanish flies dried upon it, belly up. Tartarin's
expedition had a put a stopper on everything.

Ah, you ought to have seen his success in the parlours. He was
snatched away by one from another, fought for, loaned and
borrowed, ay, stolen. There was no greater honour for the ladies
than to go to Mitaine's Menagerie on Tartarin's arms, and have it
explained before the lion's den how such large game are hunted,
where they should be aimed at, at how many paces off; if the
accidents were numerous, and the like of that.

Tartarin furnished all the elucidation desired. He had read "The
Life of Jules Gerard, the Lion-Slayer," and had lion-hunting at his
finger ends, as if he had been through it himself. Hence he orated
upon these matters with great eloquence.

But where he shone the brightest was at dinner at Chief Judge
Ladeveze's, or brave Commandant Bravida's (the former captain in
the Army Clothing Factory, you will keep in mind), when coffee
came in, and all the chairs were brought up closer together, whilst
they chatted of his future hunts.

Thereupon, his elbow on the cloth, his nose over his Mocha, our
hero would discourse in a feeling tone of all the dangers awaiting
him thereaway. He spoke of the long moonless night lyings-in-
wait, the pestilential fens, the rivers envenomed by leaves of
poison-plants, the deep snow-drifts, the scorching suns, the
scorpions, and rains of grasshoppers; he also descanted on the
peculiarities of the great lions of the Atlas, their way of fighting,