“Quès aco?” demanded Tartarin, astonished.
“Bé! yes,” replied the other, composedly. “When you travel in German Switzerland you will see pastors preaching on giddy heights, standing on rocks or rustic pulpits of the trunks of trees. A few shepherds and cheese-makers, their leather caps in their hands, and women with their heads dressed up in the costume of the canton group themselves about in picturesque attitudes; the scenery is pretty, the pastures green, or the harvest just over, cascades to the road, and flocks with their bells ringing every note on the mountain. All that, vé that’s decorative, suggestive. Only, none but the employés of the Company, guides, pastors, couriers, hotel-keepers are in the secret, and it is their interest not to let it get wind, for fear of startling the clients.”
The Alpinist was dumfounded, silent—in him the acme of stupefaction. In his heart, whatever doubt he may have had as to Bompard’s veracity, he felt himself comforted and calmed as to Alpine ascensions, and presently the conversation grew joyous. The two friends talked of Tarascon, of their good, hearty laughs in the olden time when both were younger.
“Apropos of galéjade [jokes],” said Tartarin, suddenly, “they played me a fine one on the Rigi-Kulm... Just imagine that this morning...” and he told of the letter gummed to his glass, reciting it with emphasis: “‘Devil of a Frenchman’... A hoax, of course, que?”
“May be... who knows?..” said Bompard, seeming to take the matter more seriously. He asked if Tartarin during his stay on the Rigi had relations with any one, and whether he had n’t said a word too much.
“Ha! vaï! a word too much! as if one even opened one’s mouth among those English and Germans, mute as carp under pretence of good manners!”
On reflection, however, he did remember having clinched a matter, and sharply too! with a species of Cossack, a certain Mi... Milanof.
“Manilof,” corrected Bompard.
“Do you know him?.. Between you and me, I think that Manilof had a spite against me about a little Russian girl...”
“Yes, Sonia... “murmured Bompard.