p the colonist body and boots--ay, to the very straps of them, and
leave him peeled to the core like an Indian cornstalk, stripped leaf by
leaf.

Before all else it was necessary to ascertain whether the lion had been
killed on the civil or the military territory. In the former case the
matter regarded the Tribunal of Commerce; in the second, Tartarin
would be dealt with by the Council of War: and at the mere name the
impressionable Tarasconian saw himself shot at the foot of the ramparts
or huddled up in a casemate-silo.

The puzzle lay in the limitation of the two territories being very hazy
in Algeria.

At length, after a month's running about, entanglements, and waiting
under the sun in the yards of Arab Departmental offices, it was
established that, whereas the lion had been killed on the military
territory, on the other hand Tartarin was in the civil territory when he
shot. So the case was decided in the civil courts, and our hero was
let off on paying two thousand five hundred francs damages, costs not
included.

How could he pay such a sum?

The few piashtres escaped from the prince's sweep had long since gone in
legal documents and judicial libations. The unfortunate lion-destroyer
was therefore reduced to selling the store of guns by retail, rifle by
rifle; so went the daggers, the Malay kreeses, and the life-preservers.
A grocer purchased the preserved aliments; an apothecary what remained
of the medicaments. The big boots themselves walked off after the
improved tent to a dealer of curiosities, who elevated them to the
dignity of "rarities from Cochin-China."

When everything was paid up, only the lion's skin and the camel remained
to Tartarin. The hide he had carefully packed, to be sent to Tarascon
to the address of brave Commandant Bravida, and, later on, we shall
see what came of this fabulous trophy. As for the camel, he reckoned on
making use of him to get back to Algiers, not by riding on him, but by
selling him to pay his coach-fare--the best way to employ a camel in
travelling. Unhappily the beast was difficult to place, and no one would
offer a copper for him.

Still Tartarin wanted to regain Algiers by hook or crook. He was in
haste again to behold Baya's blue bodice, his little snuggery and his
fountains, as well as to repose on the white trefoils of his little
cloister whilst awaiting money from France. So our hero did not
hesitate; distressed but not downcast, he undertook to make the