BLACK LARRY 151 



The tent-like curtains had been removed, so that 

 one could breathe in it, but the pillars remained, 

 and the head-piece and the carvings ; it was less a 

 bed than a coign of history, and more conducive 

 to thought than sleep. 



From this bed and its suggestions, from Drum- 

 gool, from Ireland, the delightful Tartarin led Miss 

 Grimshaw to the land of plane trees and blue sky. 

 Mock heroics are the finest antidote for tragic 

 thoughts, and they fitted the situation now, had 

 she known it, to a charm. 



Now she was at Tarascon. Tartarin, leaving 

 his house in the moonlight, armed to the teeth 

 against imaginary foes, led her down the white 

 road, past the little gardens, odorous as bouquets, 

 to the house of Madame Bezuquet, from whence 

 issued the voice of Costecalde, the gun-maker, and 

 the tinkling of the Nimes piano. 



Now she was seated beside him and his guns 

 and implements of the chase in the old dusty 

 African stage coach, bound for Blidah, Ustening to 

 the old coach's complaining voice. 



"Ah! my good Monsieur Tartarin, I did not 

 come out here of my own free will, I assure you. 

 Once the railway to Beaucaire was finished I was 

 of no more use there, and they packed me off to 

 Africa — " 



Miss Grimshaw paused in her reading. Was 

 that a shout from the night outside? The clock 

 on the landing, gathering itself up for the business 

 of striking with a deep humming sound, began to 



