clothes steamed before the stove. Forgetful of himself, he
questioned each of them in a sympathetic voice:

"Are you well, Placide?.. Spiridion, you seemed to be suffering just
now?.."

No, Spiridion suffered no longer, all that had passed away on seeing the
president so ill. Bravida, who adapted moral truths to the proverbs
of his nation, added cynically: "_Neighbour's ill comforts, and even
cures_." Then they talked of their hunt, exciting one another with the
recollection of certain dangerous episodes, such as the moment when the
animal turned upon them furiously; and without complicity of lying,
in fact, most ingenuously, they fabricated the fable they afterwards
related on their return to Tarascon.

Suddenly, Pascalon, who had been sent in search of another supply of
grog, reappeared in terror, one arm out of the blue-flowered curtain
that he gathered about him with the chaste gesture of a Polyeucte.
He was more than a second before he could articulate, in a whisper,
breathlessly: "The chamois!.."

"Well, what of the chamois?.."

"He's down there, in the kitchen... warming himself..."

"Ah! _vai_..."

"You are joking..."

"Suppose you go and see, Placide."

Bravida hesitated. Excourbanies descended on the tips of his toes,
but returned almost immediately, his face convulsed... More and more
astounding!.. the chamois was drinking grog.

They certainly owed it to him, poor beast, after the wild run he had
been made to take on the mountain, dispatched and recalled by his
master, who, as a usual thing, put him through his evolutions in the
house, to show to tourists how easily a chamois could be trained.

"It is overwhelming!" said Bravida, making no further effort at
comprehension; as for Tartarin, he dragged the muffler over his eyes
like a nightcap to hide from the delegates the soft hilarity that
overcame him at encountering wherever he went the dodges and the
performers of Bompard's Switzerland.

X.

The ascension of the Jungfrau. Ve! the oxen. The Kennedy
crampons will not work. Nor the reedlamp either. Apparition
of masked men at the chalet of the Alpine Club. The
president in a crevasse. On the summit. Tartarin becomes a
god.

Great influx, that morning, to the Hotel Bellevue on the Little
Scheideck. In spite of the rain and the squalls, tables had been
laid outside in the shelter of the veranda, amid a great display of
alpenstocks, flasks, telescopes, cuckoo