their phenomenal vigour; and their ferocity in the mating season.

Heating with his own recital, he would rise from table, bounding to
the middle of the dining-room, imitating the roar of a lion and the
going off of a rifle crack! bang! the zizz of the explosive bullet --
gesticulating and roaring about till he had overset the chairs.

Everybody turned pale around the board: the gentlemen looking at
one another and wagging their heads, the ladies shutting their eyes
with pretty screams of fright, the elderly men combatively
brandishing their canes; and, in the side apartments, the little boys,
who had been put to bed betimes, were greatly startled by the
sudden outcries and imitated gun-fire, and screamed for lights.
Meanwhile, Tartarin did not start.



XI.
"Let's have it out with swords gentleman, not pins!"


A DELICATE question: whether Tartarin really had any intention
of going, and one which the historian of Tartarin would be highly
embarrassed to answer. In plain words, Mitaine's Menagerie had
left Tarascon over three months, and still the lion-slayer had not
started. After all, blinded by a new mirage, our candid hero may
have imagined in perfectly good faith that he had gone to Algeria.
On the strength of having related his future hunts, he may have
believed he had performed them as sincerely as he fancied he had
hoisted the consular flag and fired on the Tartars, zizz, phit, bang!