“It is enough to give one a pleurisy,” said Bravida, turning up the collar of his coat. Then weariness set in, hunger, ill-humour. They could find no inn; and presently Excourbaniès and Bravida, having stuffed themselves with strawberries, began to suffer cruelly. Pascalon himself, that angel, bearing not only the banner, but the ice-axe, the knapsack, the alpenstock, of which the others had rid themselves basely upon him, even Pascalon had lost his gayety and ceased his lively gambolling. At a turn of the road, after they had just crossed the Lutschine by one of those covered bridges that are found in regions of deep snow, a loud blast on a horn greeted them. “Ah! _vaï_, enough!.. enough!” howled the exasperated delegation. The man, a giant, ensconced by the roadside, let go an enormous trumpet of pine wood reaching to the ground and ending there in a percussion-box, which gave to this prehistoric instrument the sonorousness of a piece of artillery. “Ask him if he knows of an inn,” said the president to Excourbaniès, who, with enormous cheek and a small pocket dictionary undertook, now that they were in German Switzerland, to serve the delegation as interpreter. But before he could pull out his dictionary the man replied in very good French: “An inn, messieurs? Why certainly... The ‘Faithful Chamois’ is close by; allow me to show you the place.” On the way, he told them he had lived in Paris for several years, as commissionnaire at the corner of the rue Vivienne. “Another employé of the Company, _parbleu!_” thought Tartarin, leaving his friends to be surprised. However, Bompard’s comrade was very useful, for, in spite of its French sign, _Le Chamois Fidèle_ the people of the “Faithful Chamois” could speak nothing but a horrible German patois. Presently, the Tarasconese delegation, seated around an enormous potato omelet, recovered both the health and the good-humour as essential to Southerners as the sun of their skies. They drank deep, they ate solidly. After many toasts to the president and his coming ascension, Tartarin, who had puzzled over the tavern-sign ever since his arrival, inquired of the horn-player, who was breaking a crust in a corner of the room: “So you have chamois here, it seems?.. I thought there were none left in Switzerland.” The man winked: “There are not many, but enough to let you see them now and then.” “Shoot them, is what he wants, _vé_” said Pas-calon, full of enthusiasm; “never did the president miss a shot!” Tartarin regretted that he had not brought his carbine. “Wait a minute, and I ‘ll speak to the landlord.” It so happened that the landlord was an old chamois hunter; he offered his gun, his powder, his buck-shot, and even himself as guide to a haunt he knew. “Forward, _zou!_” cried Tartarin, granting to his happy Alpinists the opportunity to show off the prowess of their chief. It was only a slight delay, after all; the Jungfrau lost nothing by waiting.