“Tarascon!  Tarascon!” shout the porters as the train slows up at the station, and the hero gets out.  He had hoped to slink home unobserved; but, to his amazement, he is received with shouts of “Long live Tartarin!” “Three cheers for the lion-slayer!” The people are waving their caps in the air; it is no joke, they are serious.  There is Major Bravida, and there the more noteworthy cap-hunters, who cluster round their chief and carry him in triumph down the stairs.

Now, all this was the result of sending home the skin of the blind lion.  But the climax was reached when, following the crowd down the stairs of the station, limping from his long run, came the camel.  Even this Tartarin turned to good account.  He reassured his fellow-citizens, patting the camel’s hump.

“This is my camel; a noble beast!  It has seen me kill all my lions.”

And so, linking his arm with the worthy major, he calmly wended his way to Baobab Villa, amid the ringing cheers of the populace.  On the road he began a recital of his hunts.

“Picture to yourself,” he said, “a certain evening in the open Sahara——­”

* * * * *

THOMAS DAY

Sandford and Merton

      Thomas Day was born in London on June 22, 1748, and educated
     at the Charterhouse and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 
     Entering the Middle Temple in 1765, he was called to the Bar
     ten years later, but never practised.  A contemporary and
     disciple of Rousseau, he convinced himself that human
     suffering was, in the main, the result of the artificial
     arrangements of society, and inheriting a fortune at an early
     age he spent large sums in philanthropy.  A poem written by him
     in 1773, entitled “The Dying Negro,” has been described as
     supplying the keynote of the anti-slavery movement.  His
     “History of Sandford and Merton,” published in three volumes
     between the years 1783 and 1789, provided a channel through
     which many generations of English people have imbibed a kind
     of refined Rousseauism.  It retains its interest for the
     philosophic mind, despite the burlesque of Punch and its
     waning popularity as a book for children.  Thomas Day died
     through a fall from his horse on September 28, 1789.

I.—­Mr. Barlow and his Pupils

In the western part of England lived a gentleman of a large fortune, whose name was Merton.  He had a great estate in Jamaica, but had determined to stay some years in England for the education of his only son.  When Tommy Merton came from Jamaica he was six years old.  Naturally very good-natured, he had been spoiled by indulgence.  His mother was so fond of him that she gave him everything he cried for, and would not let him learn to read because he complained that it made his head ache.  The consequence was that, though Master Merton had everything he wanted, he was fretful and unhappy, made himself disagreeable to everybody, and often met with very dangerous accidents.  He was also so delicately brought up that he was perpetually ill.