Chapter Chapter 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.