last real
Turk, and I am the last camel. Do not let us part, O my Tartarin!"

"Is that camel yours?" the captain inquired.

"Not a bit of it!" replied Tartarin, who shuddered at the idea of
entering Tarascon with that ridiculous escort; and, impudently denying
the companion of his misfortunes, he spurned the Algerian soil with his
foot, and gave the cutter the shoving-off start. The camel sniffed of
the water, extended its neck, cracked its joints, and, jumping in behind
the row-boat at haphazard, he swam towards the Zouave with his humpback
floating like a bladder, and his long neck projecting over the wave like
the beak of a galley.

Cutter and camel came alongside the mail steamer together.

"This dromedary regularly cuts me up," observed Captain Barbassou, quite
affected. "I have a good mind to take him aboard and make a present of
him to the Zoological Gardens at Marseilles."

And so they hauled up the camel with many blocks and tackles upon the
deck, being increased in weight by the brine, and the Zouave started.

Tartarin spent the two days of the crossing by himself in his stateroom,
not because the sea was rough, or that the red fez had too much to
suffer, but because the deuced camel, as soon as his master appeared
above decks, showed him the most preposterous attentions. You never did
see a camel make such an exhibition of a man as this.

From hour to hour, through the cabin portholes, where he stuck out his
nose now and then, Tartarin saw the Algerian blue sky pale away; until
one morning, in a silvery fog, he heard with delight Marseilles bells
ringing out. The Zouave had arrived and cast anchor.

Our man, having no luggage, got off without saying anything, hastily
slipped through Marseilles for fear he was still pursued by the camel,
and never breathed till he was in a third-class carriage making for
Tarascon.

Deceptive security!

Hardly were they two leagues from the city before every head was stuck
out of window. There were outcries and astonishment. Tartarin looked
in his turn, and what did he descry! the camel, reader, the inevitable
camel, racing along the line behind the train, and keeping up with it!
The dismayed Tartarin drew back and shut his eyes.

After this disastrous expedition of his he had reckoned on slipping
into his house incognito. But the presence of this burdensome quadruped
rendered the thing impossible. What kind of a triumphal entry would he
make? Good heavens! not a