they are at
it again!

"And such roads! Just here it is bearable, because we are near the
governmental headquarters; but out a bit there's nothing, Monsieur--not
the ghost of a road at all. We get along as best we can over hill and
dale, over dwarf palms and mastic-trees. Ne'er a fixed change of horses,
the stopping being at the whim of the guard, now at one farm, again at
another.

"Somewhiles this rogue goes a couple of leagues out of the way to have
a glass of absinthe or champoreau with a chum. After which, 'Crack on,
postillion!' to make up for the lost time. Though the sun be broiling
and the dust scorching, we whip on! We catch in the scrub and spill
over, but whip on! We swim rivers, we catch cold, we get swamped, we
drown, but whip! whip! whip! Then in the evening, streaming--a nice
thing for my age, with my rheumatics--I have to sleep in the open air
of some caravanseral yard, open to all the winds. In the dead o' night
jackals and hyaenas come sniffing of my body; and the marauders who
don't like dews get into my compartment to keep warm.

"Such is the life I lead, my poor Monsieur Tartarin, and that I shall
lead to the day when--burnt up by the sun and rotted by the damp nights
until unable to do anything else, I shall fall in some spot of bad
road, where the Arabs will boil their kouskous with the bones of my old
carcass"--

"Blidah! Blidah!" called out the guard as he opened the door.

II. A little gentleman drops in and "drops upon" Tartarin.

VAGUELY through the mud-dimmed glass Tartarin of Tarascon caught a
glimpse of a second-rate but pretty town market-place, regular in shape,
surrounded by colonnades and planted with orange-trees, in the midst
of which what seemed toy leaden soldiers were going through the morning
exercise in the clear roseate mist. The cafes were shedding their
shutters. In one corner there was a vegetable market. It was bewitching,
but it did not smack of lions yet.

"To the South! farther to the South!" muttered the good old desperado,
sinking back in his corner.

At this moment the door opened. A puff of fresh air rushed in, bearing
upon its wings, in the perfume of the orange-blossoms, a little person
in a brown frock-coat, old and dry, wrinkled and formal, his face no
bigger than your fist, his neckcloth of black silk five fingers wide,
a notary's letter-case, and umbrella--the very picture of a village
solicitor.

On perceiving the Tarasconian's warlike equi