A great oat-bin stood in a corner of the arena, placed there purposely perhaps. A very old man,--not too old to play the merry-andrew,--armed with an old red umbrella, raised the lid, climbed into the bin, and opened his umbrella, which was of the most brilliant shade of red. The bull rushed at him--the old man let the lid fall. Bin and umbrella closed at the same moment upon the laughing bald head. The hilarity of the public was at its height. The gipsy did not seem amused by the old man's drollery.--Nor did she laugh when a manikin was set up in the centre of the arena and the bull carried him off on his horns and hurled him into the midst of the spectators; and she did not even smile when, a window on the ground-floor of one of the houses being thrown open, a little child was seen in his mother's arms, behind the iron bars, teasing the furious animal. Laughing with glee, he held a plaything out through the bars, a little pasteboard windmill, whose pink and blue wings were made to turn by the monster's breath. Then came a tragic episode. A man--an _amateur_--struck by the sharp horns; his thigh pierced from side to side; the first cowardly movement of flight on the part of the other contestants; the return of the valiant fellows, who diverted the bull's attention and drew him off while the wounded man was removed, accompanied by the piercing shrieks of his wife and daughter. At last, the serious business of the day began. It was announced that the branding was about to take place. Immediately thereafter would come the game of the "cockades," which consists in snatching a cockade suspended between the bull's horns by a thread. With his hand or with a hooked stick the rider breaks the thread, snatches the cockade--_Crac!_ a quick recovery, and the victor has won the scarf! The branding is hard work turned into a game; it consists in branding young bulls with a red-hot iron, with their owner's cipher. A young bull having been turned into the arena, Renaud walked up to him, and, as the beast made a rush, cleverly avoided him by turning upon his heel. The bull having, thereupon, stopped short, Renaud seized him by the horns. Clinging to him with his hands, closed like knots of steel about the horns, the man was dragged for a moment, standing, over the ground, in which his thick soles dug ribbon-like furrows. The spectators clapped their hands. The bull lowered his head and stood still. Renaud, with his legs apart and bent a little, and his feet firmly planted in the ground, threw all his weight to the left. All the muscles of his chest and arms stood out beneath his shirt, which was glued to his skin by perspiration. The bull, with all his sluggish strength, tried to throw himself in the opposite direction. Suddenly Renaud gave way, and the bull, losing the support of his resistance, fell heavily before a sudden contrary effort. And there he lay at full length on the ground, gasping for breath.