elephant, and so on. Lastly, beside the table sat a man of between
forty and forty-five, short, stout, thick-set, ruddy, with flaming eyes
and a strong stubbly beard; he wore flannel tights, and was in his
shirt sleeves; one hand held a book, and the other brandished a very
large pipe with an iron bowl-cap. Whilst reading heaven only
knows what startling adventure of scalp-hunters, he pouted out his
lower lip in a terrifying way, which gave the honest phiz of the man
living placidly on his means the same impression of kindly ferocity
which abounded throughout the house.

This man was Tartarin himself -- the Tartarin of Tarascon, the
great, dreadnought, incomparable Tartarin of Tarascon.



II.
A general glance bestowed upon the good town of
Tarascon, and a particular one on "the cap-poppers."


AT the time I am telling of, Tartarin of Tarascon had not become
the present-day Tartarin, the great one so popular in the whole
South of France: but yet he was even then the cock of the walk at
Tarascon.

Let us show whence arose this sovereignty.

In the first place you must know that everybody is shooting mad in
these parts, from the greatest to the least. The chase is the local
craze, and so it has ever been since the mythological times when the