LITMIR.BIZ

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it would ruin me,” replied the abbe.

      “Don’t be afraid,” said D’Artagnan. “I never go there.”

      “Why, what in the world,” cried Aramis, “is that animal Bazin doing? Bazin! Hurry up there, you rascal; we are mad with hunger and thirst!”

      Bazin entered at that moment carrying a bottle in each hand.

      “At last,” said Aramis, “we are ready, are we?”

      “Yes, monsieur, quite ready,” said Bazin; “but it took me some time to bring up all the-”

      “Because you always think you have on your shoulders your beadle’s robe, and spend all your time reading your breviary. But I give you warning that if in polishing your chapel utensils you forget how to brighten up my sword, I will make a great fire of your blessed images and will see that you are roasted on it.”

      Bazin, scandalized, made a sign of the cross with the bottle in his hand. D’Artagnan, more surprised than ever at the tone and manners of the Abbe d’Herblay, which contrasted so strongly with those of the Musketeer Aramis, remained staring with wide-open eyes at the face of his friend.

      Bazin quickly covered the table with a damask cloth and arranged upon it so many things, gilded, perfumed, appetizing, that D’Artagnan was quite overcome.

      “But you expected some one then?” asked the officer.

      “Oh,” said Aramis, “I always try to be prepared; and then I knew you were seeking me.”

      “From whom?”

      “From Master Bazin, to be sure; he took you for the devil, my dear fellow, and hastened to warn me of the danger that threatened my soul if I should meet again a companion so wicked as an officer of musketeers.”

      “Oh, monsieur!” said Bazin, clasping his hands supplicatingly.

      “Come, no hypocrisy! you know that I don’t like it. You will do much better to open the window and let down some bread, a chicken and a bottle of wine to your friend Planchet, who has been this last hour killing himself clapping his hands.”

      Planchet, in fact, had bedded and fed his horses, and then coming back under the window had repeated two or three times the signal agreed upon.

      Bazin obeyed, fastened to the end of a cord the three articles designated and let them down to Planchet, who then went satisfied to his shed.

      “Now to supper,” said Aramis.

      The two friends sat down and Aramis began to cut up fowls, partridges and hams with admirable skill.

      “The deuce!” cried D’Artagnan; “do you live in this way always?”

      “Yes, pretty well. The coadjutor has given me dispensations from fasting on the jours maigres, on account of my health; then I have engaged as my cook the cook who lived with Lafollone-you know the man I mean? – the friend of the cardinal, and the famous epicure whose grace after dinner used to be, ‘Good Lord, do me the favor to cause me to digest what I have eaten.’”

      “Nevertheless he died of indigestion, in spite of his grace,” said D’Artagnan.

      “What can you expect?” replied Aramis, in a tone of resignation. “Every man that’s born must fulfil his destiny.”

      “If it be not an indelicate question,” resumed D’Artagnan, “have you grown rich?”

      “Oh, Heaven! no. I make about twelve thousand francs a year, without counting a little benefice of a thousand crowns the prince gave me.”

      “And how do you make your twelve thousand francs? By your poems?”

      “No, I have given up poetry, except now and then to write a drinking song, some gay sonnet or some innocent epigram; I compose sermons, my friend.”

      “What! sermons? Do you preach them?”

      “No; I sell them to those of my cloth who wish to become great orators.”

      “Ah, indeed! and you have not been tempted by the hopes of reputation yourself?”

      “I should, my dear D’Artagnan, have been so, but nature said ‘No.’ When I am in the pulpit, if by chance a pretty woman looks at me, I look at her again: if she smiles, I smile too. Then I speak at random; instead of preaching about the torments of hell I talk of the joys of Paradise. An event took place in the Church of St. Louis au Marais. A gentleman laughed in my face. I stopped short to tell him that he was a fool; the congregation went out to get stones to stone me with, but whilst they were away I found means to conciliate the priests who were present, so that my foe was pelted instead of me. ‘Tis true that he came the next morning to my house, thinking that he had to do with an abbe-like all other abbes.”

      “And what was the end of the affair?”

      “We met in the Place Royale-Egad! you know about it.”

      “Was I not your second?” cried D’Artagnan.

      “You were; you know how I settled the matter.”

      “Did he die?”

      “I don’t know. But, at all events, I gave him absolution in articulo mortis. ‘Tis enough to kill the body, without killing the soul.”

      Bazin made a despairing sign which meant that while perhaps he approved the moral he altogether disapproved the tone in which it was uttered.

      “Bazin, my friend,” said Aramis, “you don’t seem to be aware that I can see you in that mirror, and you forget that once for all I have forbidden all signs of approbation or disapprobation. You will do me the favor to bring us some Spanish wine and then to withdraw. Besides, my friend D’Artagnan has something to say to me privately, have you not, D’Artagnan?”

      D’Artagnan nodded his head and Bazin retired, after placing on the table the Spanish wine.

      The two friends, left alone, remained silent, face to face. Aramis seemed to await a comfortable digestion; D’Artagnan, to be preparing his exordium. Each of them, when the other was not looking, hazarded a sly glance. It was Aramis who broke the silence.

      “What are you thinking of, D’Artagnan?” he began.

      “I was thinking, my dear old friend, that when you were a musketeer you turned your thoughts incessantly to the church, and now that you are an abbe you are perpetually longing to be once more a musketeer.”

      “‘Tis true; man, as you know,” said Aramis, “is a strange animal, made up of contradictions. Since I became an abbe I dream of nothing but battles.”

      “That is apparent in your surroundings; you have rapiers here of every form and to suit the most exacting taste. Do you still fence well?”

      “I-I fence as well as you did in the old time-better still, perhaps; I do nothing else all day.”

      “And with whom?”

      “With an excellent master-at-arms that we have here.”

      “What! here?”

      “Yes, here, in this convent, my dear fellow. There is everything in a Jesuit convent.”

      “Then you would have killed Monsieur de Marsillac if he had come alone to attack you, instead of at the head of twenty men?”

      “Undoubtedly,” said Aramis, “and even at the head of his twenty men, if I could have drawn without being recognized.”

      “God pardon me!” said D’Artagnan to himself, “I believe he has become more Gascon than I am!” Then aloud: “Well, my dear Aramis, do you ask me why I came to seek you?”

      “No, I have not asked you that,” said Aramis, with his subtle manner; “but I have expected you to tell me.”

      “Well, I sought you for the single purpose of offering you a chance to kill Monsieur de Marsillac whenever you please, prince though he is.”

      “Hold on! wait!” said Aramis; “that is an idea!”

      “Of which

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