oire had whipped out his
lancet: but the gunsmith, writhing in distress, made a horrible grimace,
and said ingenuously:

"Nothing... nothing... let me alone... I know what it is... it is envy."

Poor Costecalde, he seemed to suffer much.

While these things were happening, at the other end of the Tour de
Ville, in the pharmacy, Bezuquet's pupil, seated before his master's
desk, was patiently patching and gumming together the fragments of
Tartarin's letter overlooked by the apothecary at the bottom of the
basket. But numerous bits were lacking in the reconstruction, for here
is the singular and sinister enigma spread out before him, not unlike a
map of Central Africa, with voids and spaces of _terra incognita_,
which the artless standard-bearer explored in a state of terrified
imagination:

mad with love reed
-wick lam
preserves of Chicago.
cannot tear myself
Nihilist
to death condition
abom in exchange
for her
You know me, Ferdi
know my liberal ideas,
but from there to tzaricide
rrible consequences
Siberia hung
adore her
Ah! press thy loyal hand

Tar Tar

VIII.

Memorable dialogue between the jungfrau and Tartarin. A
nihilist salon. The duel with hunting-knives. Frightful
nightmare, "Is it I you are seeking, messieurs?" Strange
reception given by the hotel-keeper Meyer to the Tarasconese
delegation.

Like all the other choice hotels at Interlaken, the Hotel Jungfrau, kept
by Meyer, is situated on the Hoeheweg, a wide promenade between double
rows of chestnut-trees that vaguely reminded Tar-tarin of the beloved
Tour de Ville of his native town, minus the sun, the grasshoppers, and
the dust; for during his week's sojourn at Interlaken the rain had never
ceased to fall.

He occupied a very fine chamber with a balcony on the first floor, and
trimmed his beard in the morning before a little hand-glass hanging to
the window, an old habit of his when travelling. The first object that
daily struck his eyes beyond the fields of grass and corn, the nursery
gardens, and an amphitheatre of solemn verdure in rising stages, was
the Jungfrau, lifting from the clouds her summit, like a horn, white and
pure with unbroken snow, to which was daily cli