Unfortunately the title of Highness, which had so dazzled the worthy Tarasconian, did not produce the slightest impression upon the Chasseurs officer with whom the noble had his dispute.
"I am much the wiser!" observed the military gentleman sneeringly ;and turning to the bystanders he added: "'Prince Gregory of Montenegro' -- who knows any such a person? Nobody!"The indignant Tartarin took one step forward.
"Allow me.I know the prance," said he, in a very firm voice, and with his finest Tarasconian accent.
The light cavalry officer eyed him hard for a moment, and then, shrugging his shoulders, returned:
"Come, that is good! Just you two share the twenty francs lacking between you, and let us talk no more on the score."Whereupon he turned his back upon them and mixed with the crowd.The stormy Tartarin was going to rush after him, but the prince prevented that.
"Let him go.I can manage my own affairs."
Taking the interventionist by the arm, he drew him rapidly out of doors.When they were upon the square, Prince Gregory of Montenegro lifted his hat off; extended his hand to our hero, and as he but dimly remembered his name, he began in a vibrating voice:
"Monsieur Barbarin -- "
"Tartarin!" prompted the other, timidly.
"Tartarin, Barbarin, no matter! Between us henceforward it is a league of life and death!"The Montenegrin noble shook his hand with fierce energy.You may infer that the Tarasconian was proud.
"Prance, prance!" he repeated enthusiastically.
In a quarter of an hour subsequently the two gentlemen were installed in the Platanes Restaurant, an agreeable late supper-house, with terraces running out over the sea, where, before a hearty Russian salad, seconded by a nice Crescia wine, they renewed the friendship.
You cannot image any one more bewitching than this Montenegrin prince.Slender, fine, with crisp hair curled by the tongs, shaved "a week under" and pumice-stoned on that, bestarred with out-of-the-way decorations, he had the wily eye, the fondling gestures, and vaguely the accent of an Italian, which gave him an air of Cardinal Mazarin without his chin-tuft and moustaches.He was deeply versed in the Latin tongues, and lugged in quotations from Tacitus, Horace, and Caesar's Commentaries at every opening.
Of an old noble strain, it appeared that his brothers had had him exiled at the age of ten, on account of his liberal opinions, since which time he had roamed the world for pleasure and instruction as a philosophical noble.A singular coincidence! the prince had spent three years in Tarascon; and as Tartarin showed amazement at never having met him at the club or on the esplanade, His Highness evasively remarked that he never went about.Through delicacy, the Tarasconian did not dare to question further.All great existences have such mysterious nooks.
To sum up, this Signor Gregory was a very genial aristocrat.
Whilst sipping the rosy Crescia juice he patiently listened to Tartarin's expatiating on his lovely Moor, and he even promised to find her speedily, as he had full knowledge of the native ladies.
They drank hard and lengthily in toasts to "The ladies of Algiers"and "The freedom of Montenegro!"
Outside, upon the terrace, heaved the sea, and its rollers slapped the strand in the darkness with much the sound of wet sails flapping.The air was warm, and the sky full of stars.
In the plane-trees a nightingale was piping.
It was Tartarin who paid the piper.
