It was into the thick of this saturnalia that the great Tartarin came straying one evening to find oblivion and heart’s ease.
He was roving alone through the gathering, brooding about his Moorish beauty, when two angered voices arose suddenly from a gaming-table above all the clamour and chink of coin.
“I tell you, M’sieu, that I am twenty francs short!”
“Stuff, M’sieu!”
“Stuff yourself; M’sieu!”
“You shall learn whom you are addressing, M’sieu!”
“I am dying to do that, M’sieu!”
“I am Prince Gregory of Montenegro, M’sieu.”
Upon this title Tartarin, much excited, cleft the throng and placed himself in the foremost rank, proud and happy to find his prince again, the Montenegrin noble of such politeness whose acquaintance he had begun on board of the mail steamer. Unfortunately the title of Highness, which had so dazzled the worthy Tarasconian, did not produce the slightest impression upon the Chasseurs officer with whom the noble had his dispute.
“I am much the wiser!” observed the military gentleman sneeringly; and turning to the bystanders he added: “‘Prince Gregory of Montenegro’—who knows any such a person? Nobody!”