“That, at least, is true,” said Tartarin, thinking aloud, and remembering the Rigi. “True!.. But you have seen nothing yet... Go on through the country and you ‘ll not find one corner that is n’t engineered and machine-worked like the under stage of the Opera,--cascades lighted _à giorno_, turnstiles at the entrance to the glaciers, and loads of railways, hydraulic and funicular, for ascensions. To be sure, the Company, in view of its clients the English and American climbers, keeps up on the noted mountains, Jungfrau, Monk, Finsteraarhorn, an appearance of danger and desolation, though in reality there is no more risk there than elsewhere...” “But the crevasses, my good fellow, those horrible crevasses... Suppose one falls into them?” “You fall on snow, Monsieur Tartarin, and you don’t hurt yourself, and there is always at the bottom a porter, a hunter, at any rate some one, who picks you up, shakes and brushes you, and asks graciously: ‘Has monsieur any baggage?’” “What stuff are you telling me now, Gonzague?” Bompard redoubled in gravity. “The keeping up of those crevasses is one of the heaviest expenses of the Company.” Silence fell for a moment under the tunnel, the surroundings of which were quieting down. No more varied fireworks, Bengal lights, or boats on the water; but the moon had risen and made another conventional landscape, bluish, liquides-cent, with masses of impenetrable shadow... Tartarin hesitated to believe his companion on his word. Nevertheless, he reflected on the extraordinary things he had seen in four days--the sun on the Rigi, the farce of William Tell--and Bompard’s inventions seemed to him all the more probable because in every Tarasconese the braggart is leashed with a gull. “_Différemment_, my good friend, how do you explain certain awful catastrophes... that of the Matterhorn, for instance?..” “It is sixteen years since that happened; the Company was not then constituted, Monsieur Tartarin.” “But last year, the accident on the Wetterhorn, two guides buried with their travellers!..” “Must, sometimes, _té, pardi!_.. you understand... whets the Alpinists... The English won’t come to mountains now where heads are not broke... The Wetterhorn had been running down for some time, but after that little item in the papers the receipts went up at once.” “Then the two guides?..” “They are just as safe as the travellers; only they are kept out of sight, supported in foreign parts, for six months... A puff like that costs dear, but the Company is rich enough to afford it.” “Listen to me, Gonzague...” Tartarin had risen, one hand on Bompard’s shoulder. “You would not wish to have any misfortune happen to me, _que?_.. Well, then! speak to me frankly... you know my capacities as an Alpinist; they are moderate.” “Very moderate, that’s true.” “Do you think, nevertheless, that I could, without too much danger, undertake the ascension of the Jungfrau?”