culated wildly with a
large pipe in the other--Tartarin! He was evidently imagining himself
the daring hero of the story.

Now you must know that the people of Tarascon were tremendously keen on
hunting, and Tartarin was the chief of the hunters. You may think this
funny when you know there was not a living thing to shoot at within
miles of Tarascon; scarcely a sparrow to attract local sportsmen. Ah,
but you don't know how ingenious they are down there.

Every Sunday morning off the huntsmen sallied with their guns and
ammunition, the hounds yelping at their heels. Each man as he left in
the morning took with him a brand new cap, and when they got well into
the country and were ready for sport, they took their caps off, threw
then high in the air, and shot at them as they fell. In the evening you
would see them returning with their riddled caps stuck on the points of
their guns, and of all these brave men Tartarin was the most admired, as
he always swung into town with the most hopeless rag of a cap at the end
of a day's sport. There's no mistake, he was a wonder!

But for all his adventurous spirit, he had a certain amount of caution.
There were really two men inside the skin of Tartarin. The one Tartarin
said to him, "Cover yourself with glory." The other said to him, "Cover
yourself with flannel." The one, imagining himself fighting Red Indians,
would call for "An axe! An axe! Somebody give me an axe!" The other,
knowing that he was cosy by his fireside, would ring the bell and say,
"Jane, my coffee."

One evening at Costecalde's, the gunsmith's, when Tartarin was
explaining some mechanism of a rifle, the door was opened and an excited
voice announced, "A lion! A lion!" The news seemed incredible, but you
can imagine the terror that seized the little group at the gunsmith's as
they asked for more news. It appeared that the lion was to be seen in a
travelling menagerie newly arrived from Beaucaire.

A lion at last, and here in Tarascon! Suddenly, when the full truth had
dawned upon Tartarin, he shouldered his gun, and, turning to Major
Bravida, "Let us go to see him!" he thundered. Following him went the
cap-hunters. Arrived at the menagerie, where many Tarasconians were
already wandering from cage to cage, Tartarin entered with his gun over
his shoulder to make inquiries about the king of beasts. His entrance
was rather a wet blanket on the other visitors, who, seeing their hero
thus armed, thought there might b