esteem as ever. "He's game!" he persisted in saying -- an assertion,
I beg to believe, fully worth the chemist Bezuquet's. Not once did
the brave officer let out any allusion to the trip to Africa; but when
the public clamour grew too loud, he determined to have his say.

One evening the luckless Tartarin was in his study, in a brown study
himself, when he saw the commandant stride in, stern, wearing
black gloves, buttoned up to his ears.

"Tartarin," said the ex-captain authoritatively, "Tartarin, you'll have
to go!"

And there he dwelt, erect in the doorway frame, grand and rigid as
embodied Duty. Tartarin of Tarascon comprehended all the sense in
"Tartarin, you'll have to ago!"

Very pale, he rose and looked around with a softened eye upon the
cosy snuggery, tightly closed in, full of warmth and tender light --
upon the commodious easy chair, his books, the carpet, the white
blinds of the windows, beyond which trembled the slender twigs of
the little garden. Then, advancing towards the brave officer, he
took his hand, grasped it energetically, and said in a voice
somewhat tearful, but stoical for all that:

"I am going, Bravida."

And go he did, as he said he would. Not straight off though, for it
takes time to get the paraphernalia together.

To begin with, he ordered of Bompard two large boxes bound with