الفصل الفصل 11 · XI. “Let’s have it out with swords gentleman, not pins!”

. 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! at Shanghai.

Unfortunately, granting Tartarin was this time again dupe of an

illusion, his fellow-townsfolk were not. When, after the quarter’s

expectation, they perceived that the hunter had not packed even a

collar-box, they commenced murmuring.

“This is going to turn out like the Shanghai expedition,” remarked

Costecalde, smiling.

The gunsmith’s comment was welcomed all over town, for nobody believed

any longer in their late idol. The simpletons and poltroons--all the

fellows of Bezuquet’s stamp, whom a flea would put to flight, and who

could not fire a shot without closing their eyes--were conspicuously

pitiless. In the club-rooms or on the esplanade, they accosted poor

Tartarin with bantering mien:

“And furthermore, when is that trip coming off?”

In Costecalde’s shop, his opinions gained no credence, for the

cap-poppers renounced their chief!

Next, epigrams dropped into the affair. Chief Judge Ladevese, who

willingly paid court in his leisure hours to the native Muse, composed

in local dialect a song which won much success. It told of a sportsman

called “Master Gervais,” whose dreaded rifle was bound to exterminate

all the lions in Africa to the very last. Unluckily, this terrible gun

was of a strange kind: “though loaded daily, it never went off.”

“It never went off”--you will catch the drift.

In less than no time, this ditty became popular; and when Tartarin came

by, the longshoremen and the little shoeblacks before his door sang in

chorus--

“Muster Jarvey’s roifle

Allus gittin’ chaarged;

Muster Jarvey’s roifle

‘il hev to git enlaarged;

Muster Jarvey’s roifle’s

Loaded oft--don’t scoff;

Muster Jarvey’s roifle

Nivver do go off!”

But it was shouted out from a safe distance, on account of the double

muscles.

Oh, the fragility of Tarascon’s fads!

The great object himself feigned to see and hear nothing; but, under the

surface, this sullen and venomous petty warfare much afflicted him. He

felt aware that Tarascon was slipping out of his grip, and that popular

favour was going to others; and this made him suffer horribly.

Ah, the huge bowl of popularity! it’s all very well to have a seat in

front of it, but what a scalding you catch when it is overturned!

Notwithstanding his pain, Tartarin smiled and peacefully jogged on in

the same life as if nothing untoward had happened. Still, the mask

of jovial heedlessness glued by pride on his face would sometimes

be suddenly detached. Then, in lieu of laughter, one saw grief and

indignation. Thus it was that one morning, when the little blackguards

yelped “Muster Jarvey’s Roifle” beneath his window, the wretches’ voices

rose even into the poor great man’s room, where he was shaving before

the glass. (Tartarin wore a full beard, but as it grew very thick, he

was obliged to keep it trimmed orderly.)

All at once the window was violently opened, and Tartarin appeared in

shirt-sleeves and nightcap, smothered in lather, flourishing his razor

and shaving-brush, and roaring with a formidable voice:

“Let’s have it out with swords, gentlemen, not pins!”

Fine words, worthy of history’s record, with only the blemish that they

were addressed to little scamps not higher than their boot-boxes, and

who were quite incapable of holding a smallsword.