“Children, are we ready?” said the good Tar-tarin in a joyous, triumphant voice, in which not a shade of anxiety trembled at the possible dangers of the trip—his last doubt as to the Company’s manipulation of Switzerland being dissipated that very morning before the two glaciers of Grindel-wald each protected by a wicket and a turnstile, with this inscription “Entrance to the glacier: one franc fifty.”
He could, therefore, enjoy without anxiety this departure in apotheosis, the joy of feeling himself looked at, envied, admired by those bold little misses in boys’ caps who laughed at him so prettily on the Rigi-Kulm, and were now enthusiastically comparing his short person with the enormous mountain he was about to climb. One drew his portrait in her album, another sought the honour of touching his alpenstock. “Tchemppegne!.. Tchemppegne!..” called out of a sudden a tall, funereal Englishman with a brick-coloured skin, coming up to him, bottle and glass in hand. Then, after obliging the hero to drink with him:
“Lord Chipendale, sir... And you?”
“Tartarin of Tarascon.”
“Oh! yes... Tartarine... Capital name for a horse,” said the lord, who must have been one of those great turfmen across the Channel.
The Austro-Hungarian diplomat also came to press the Alpinist’s hand between his mittens, remembering vaguely to have seen him somewhere. “Enchanted!.. enchanted!..” he enunciated several times, and then, not knowing how to get out of it, he added: “My compliments to madame...” his social formula for cutting short presentations.
But the guides were impatient; they must reach before nightfall the hut of the Alpine Club, where they were to sleep for the first stage, and there was not a minute to lose. Tartarin felt it, saluted all with a circular gesture, smiled at the malicious misses, and then, in a voice of thunder, commanded:
“Pascalon, the banner!”
It waved to the breeze; the Southerners took off their hats, for they love theatricals at Tarascon; and at the cry, a score of times repeated: “Long live the president!.. Long live Tartarin!.. Ah! ah!..fen dé brut!..” the column moved off, the two guides in front carrying the knapsack, the provisions, and a supply of wood; then came Pascalon bearing the oriflamme, and lastly the P. C. A. with the delegates who proposed to accompany him as far as the glacier of the Guggi.
Thus deployed in procession, bearing its flapping flag along the sodden way beneath those barren or snowy crests, the cortège vaguely recalled the funeral marches of an All Souls’ day in the country.