Needless to say, there is a great trade of caps in the town.  There are even hatters who sell caps torn and full of holes for the use of the clumsy.  But hardly any one but Bezuquet, the chemist, buys them.  It is dishonouring!

As a cap-hunter, Tartarin of Tarascon has no equal.  Every Sunday morning he starts with a new cap; every Sunday evening he returns with a rag.  At the little house with the baobab-tree the greenhouses were full of the glorious trophies.  For this reason all the Tarasconners recognised him as their master, and as Tartarin knew the code of a sportsman through and through, had read all the treatises, all the manuals of every conceivable hunt, from the pursuit of caps to the pursuit of Bengal tigers, these gentlemen made him their great sporting justicier, and appointed him arbitrator in all their discussions.

Every day, from three to four, at Costecalde’s the gunsmith, a fat man was to be seen, very grave, with a pipe between his teeth, sitting in a chair covered with green leather, in the middle of a shop full of cap-hunters, all standing and wrangling.  It was Tartarin of Tarascon administering justice, Nimrod added to Solomon.

CONCERNING CHARLES LAMB

PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN
[Sidenote:  William Hazlitt]

...  “There is one person,” said a shrill, querulous voice, “I would rather see than all these—­Don Quixote!”

“Come, come!” said Hunt; “I thought we should have no heroes, real or fabulous.  What say you, Mr. Lamb?  Are you for eking out your shadowy list with such names as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, or Genghis Khan?”

“Excuse me,” said Lamb; “on the subject of characters in active life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet of my own, which I beg leave to reserve.”

“No, no! come out with your worthies!”

“What do you think of Guy Fawkes and Judas Iscariot?”

Hunt turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full of smothered glee.  “Your most exquisite reason!” was echoed on all sides; and all thought that Lamb had now fairly entangled himself.

“Why, I cannot but think,” retorted he of the wistful countenance, “that Guy Fawkes, that poor, fluttering, annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman.  I would give something to see him sitting pale and emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to transport him to Paradise for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is that fellow Godwin will make something of it.  And as to Judas Iscariot, my reason is different.  I would fain see the face of him who, having dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwards betray Him.  I have no conception of such a thing; nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leonardo’s very fine one) that gave me the least idea of it.”