"Ma-a-aster, tell them the... the... thing... crevasse."
The president smiled. "Child!.." he said: but, all the same, he began the tale of his fall; first with a careless, indifferent air, and then with startled motions, jigglings at the end of the rope over the abyss, hands outstretched and appealing. The young ladies quivered, and devoured him with those cold English eyes, those eyes that open round.
In the silence that followed, rose the voice of Bompard:--
"On Chimborazo we never roped one another to cross crevasses."
The delegates looked at one another. As a tarasconade that remark surpassed them all.
"Oh, _that_ Bompard, _pas mouain_..." murmured Pascalon, with ingenuous admiration.
But père Baltet, taking Chimborazo seriously, protested against the practice of not roping. According to him, no ascension over ice was possible without a rope, a good rope of Manila hemp; then, if one slipped, the others could hold him.
"Unless the rope breaks, Monsieur Baltet," said Tartarin, remembering the catastrophe on the Matterhorn.
But the landlord, weighing his words, replied:
"The rope did not break on the Matterhorn... the rear guide cut it with a blow of his axe..."
"Beg pardon, monsieur, but the guide had a right to do it... He saw the impossibility of holding back those who had fallen, and he detached himself from them to save his life, that of his son, and of the traveller they were accompanying... Without his action seven persons would have lost their lives instead of four."
Then a discussion began. Tartarin thought that in letting yourself be roped in file you were bound in honour to live and die together; and growing excited, especially in presence of ladies, he backed his opinion by facts and by persons present: "Tomorrow, _té!_ to-morrow, in roping myself to Bom-pard, it is not a simple precaution that I shall take, it is an oath before God and man to be one with my companion and to die sooner than return without him, _coquin de sort!_"
"I accept the oath for myself, as for you, Tar-tarin..." cried Bompard from the other side of the round table.
The minister, electrified, rose, came to the hero and inflicted upon him a pump-handle exercise of the hand that was truly English. His wife did likewise, then all the young ladies continued the _shake hands_ with enough vigour to have brought water to the fifth floor of the house. The delegates, I ought to mention, were less enthusiastic.