"Haply she is there!" he would say to himself.

Thereupon, granting the street was unpeopled, he would go up to
one of these dwellings, lift the heavy knocker of the low postern,
and timidly rap. The songs and merriment would instantly cease.
There would be audible behind the wall nothing excepting low, dull
flutterings as in a slumbering aviary.

"Let's stick to it, old boy," our hero would think. "Something will
befall us yet."

What most often befell him was the contents of the cold-water jug
on the head, or else peel of oranges and Barbary figs; never
anything more serious.

Well might the lions of the Atlas Mountains doze in peace.



IX.
Prince Gregory of Montenegro.


IT was two long weeks that the unfortunate Tartarin had been
seeking his Algerian flame, and most likely he would have been
seeking after her to this day if the little god kind to lovers had not
come to his help under the shape of a Montenegrin nobleman.

It happened as follows.