VII.
About an Omnibus, a Moorish Beauty, and a Wreath of Jessamine.


COMMON people would have been discouraged by such a first
adventure, but men of Tartarin's mettle do not easily get cast down.

"The lions are in the South, are they?" mused the hero. "Very well,
then. South I go."

As soon as he had swallowed his last mouthful he jumped up, thanked
his host, nodded good-bye to the old hag without any ill-will,
dropped a final tear over the hapless Blackey, and quickly returned
to Algiers, with the firm intention of packing up and starting
that very day for the South.

The Mustapha highroad seemed, unfortunately, to have stretched
since overnight; and what a sun and dust there were, and what a
weight in that shelter-tent! Tartarin did not feel to have the courage
to walk to the town, and he beckoned to the first omnibus coming
along, and climbed in.

Oh, our poor Tartarin of Tarascon! how much better it would have
been for his name and fame not to have stepped into that fatal ark
on wheels, but to have continued on his road afoot, at the risk of
falling suffocated beneath the burden of the atmosphere, the tent,
and his heavy double-barrelled rifles.

When Tartarin got in the 'bus was full. At the end, with his nose in
his prayer-book, sat a large and black-bearded vicar from town;