And Schwanthaler, a camp-stool under his arm, not willing to be behindhand, quoted two verses of Schiller, most of it remaining in his flowing beard. Then the ladies exclaimed, and for a time nothing was heard but:-- “Schön!.. schön...” “Yes... lovely...” “Exquisite! delicious!..” One might have thought one’s self at a confectioner’s. Abruptly a voice broke forth, rending with the ring of a trumpet that composed silence. “Badly shouldered, I tell you... That crossbow is not in place...” Imagine the stupor of the painter in presence of this exorbitant Alpinist, who, alpenstock in hand and ice-axe on his shoulder, risking the annihilation of somebody at each of his many evolutions, was demonstrating to him by A + B that the motions of his William Tell were not correct. “I know what I am talking about, _au mouain_... I beg you to believe it...” “Who are you?” “Who am I!” exclaimed the Alpinist, now thoroughly vexed... So it was not to him that the door was opened; and drawing himself up he said: “Go ask my name of the panthers of the Zaccar, of the lions of Atlas... they will answer you, perhaps.” The company recoiled; there was general alarm. “But,” asked the painter, “in what way is my action wrong?” “Look at me, _té!_” Falling into position with a thud of his heels that made the planks beneath them smoke, Tar-tarin, shouldering his ice-axe like a crossbow, stood rigid. “Superb! He’s right... Don’t stir...” Then to the _famulus_: “Quick! a block, charcoal!..” The fact is, the Tarasconese hero was something worth painting,--squat, round-shouldered, head bent forward, the muffler round his chin like a strap, and his flaming little eye taking aim at the terrified _famulus_. Imagination, O magic power!.. He thought himself on the marketplace of Altorf, in front of his own child, he, who had never had any; an arrow in his bow, another in his belt to pierce the heart of the tyrant. His conviction became so strong that it conveyed itself to others. “‘T is William Tell himself!..” said the painter, crouched on a stool and driving his sketch with a feverish hand. “Ah! monsieur, why did I not know you earlier? What a model you would have been for me!..” “Really! then you see some resemblance?” said Tartarin, much flattered, but keeping his pose. Yes, it was just so that the artist imagined his hero. “The head, too?” “Oh! the head, that’s no matter...” and the painter stepped back to look at his sketch. “Yes, a virile mask, energetic, just what I wanted--inasmuch as nobody knows anything about William Tell, who probably never existed.” Tartarin dropped the cross-bow from stupefaction. “_Outre!_ {*}.. Never existed!.. What is that you are saying?” * “Outre” and “boufre” are Tarasconese oaths of mysterious etymology. “Ask these gentlemen...” Astier-Réhu, solemn, his three chins in his white cravat, said: “That is a Danish legend.” “Icelandic..” affirmed Schwanthaler, no less majestic.