Where Tartarin really excelled, however, was after dinner at the home of president Ladevèze or the brave Commandant Bravida (quartermaster. Ret) when coffee had been served and the chairs pulled together, then with his elbow on the table, between sips of his coffee, our hero gave a moving description of all the dangers which awaited him “Over there” He spoke of long moonless watches, of pestilential marshes, of rivers poisoned by the leaves of oleanders, of snows, scorching suns, scorpions and clouds of locusts; he also spoke of the habits of the great lions of the Atlas, their phenomenal strength, their ferocity in the mating season.... Then, carried away by his own words, he would rise from the table and bound into the middle of the room, imitating the roar of the lion, the noise of the rifle “Pan! Pan!” The whistle of the bullet. Gesticulating, shouting, knocking over chairs... while at the table faces are grave, the men looking at one another and nodding their heads, the ladies closing their eyes with little cries of alarm. A grandfather brandishes his walking-stick in a bellicose manner and, in the next room, the small children who have been put to bed earlier are startled out of their sleep by the banging and bellowing, and greatly frightened demand lights. Tartarin, however, showed no sign of leaving for Africa... did he really have any intention of going? That is a delicate question and one to which his biographer would find difficulty in replying. The fact is that the menagerie had now been gone for three months but the killer of lions had not budged... could it be that our innocent hero, blinded perhaps by a new mirage, honestly believed that he had been to Africa, and by talking so much about his hunting expedition believed that it had actually taken place. Unfortunately, if this was the case and Tartarin had once more fallen victim to the mirage, the people of Tarascon had not. When it was observed that after three months of waiting the hunter had not packed a single bag, people began to talk. “This will turn out to be another Shanghai.” Said Costecalde, smiling, and this remark spread round the town like wildfire, for people had lost their belief in Tartarin. The ignorant, the chicken-hearted, people like Bezuquet, whom a flea could put to flight, and who could not fire a gun without closing both eyes, these above all were pitiless. At the club, on the esplanade, they accosted poor Tartarin with little mocking remarks, “Et autremain, what about this trip then?” At Costecalde’s shop his opinion was no longer law. The hat hunters had deserted their leader.