Now, all this time the crowd behind the house maintained their shouts and outcries. Under the circumstances, this uproar became shockingly absurd, and out of place; so the guide hastened to put an end to it. On the whole, he thought it was not worth while to tell the truth, for the truth would have so excited the good people of Albano, that they would, undoubtedly, have taken vengeance on the strangers for such a disgrace as this. Therefore the guide decided to let his fancy play around the actual fact, and thus it was that the guide's story became an idealized version. It was something to the following effect:-- The terrible wild boar, he said, had been completely indifferent to their outcry, or had, perhaps, been afraid to come forth and face so many enemies. He (the guide) had therefore determined to try to smoke him out, and had borrowed their handkerchiefs for that purpose, as there were no other combustibles to be had. Of this they were already aware. He had tied these handkerchiefs together in such a way that they would burn, and after setting fire to them, had burled the blazing mass into the house. There it emitted its stifling fumes till they confused, suffocated, frightened, and confounded the lurking wild boar. Then, in the midst of this, the heroic youth, armed with his gun, rushed forward and poured the deadly contents of his piece into the body of the beast. Had it been any other annual, it would undoubtedly have perished; but the wild boar has a hide like sheet iron, and this one was merely irritated by the shot. Still, though not actually wounded, he was enraged, and at the same time frightened. In his rage and fear he started from his lurking-place; he bounded forth, and made a savage attack upon the party in front of the house. They stood their ground firmly and heroically, and beat him off; whereupon, in despair, he turned and fled, vanquished, to his lair in the Alban tunnel. In this way the guide's vivid imagination saved the travellers from the fury of the Alban people, by preventing that fury, and supplying in its place self-complacency. The Alban people felt satisfied with themselves and with this story. They accepted it as undoubted; they took it to their homes and to their hearts; they enlarged, adorned, improved, and lengthened it out, until, finally, it assumed the amplest proportion, and became one of the most popular legends of the place. What is still more wonderful, this very guide, who had first created it, told it so often to parties of tourists, that he at length grew to believe every word of it himself; and the fact that he had been an actor in that scene never failed to make his story quite credible to his hearers. At this time, however, he had not advanced so far, and he was able to tell the actual facts of the case to the boys and Uncle Moses. They were these:--