LITMIR.BIZ

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in one of my warrens.”

      “Zounds! what a flavor!” cried D’Artagnan; “ah! they are fed on thyme only, your hares.”

      “And how do you like my wine?” asked Porthos; “it is pleasant, isn’t it?”

      “Capital!”

      “It is nothing, however, but a wine of the country.”

      “Really?”

      “Yes, a small declivity to the south, yonder on my hill, gives me twenty hogsheads.”

      “Quite a vineyard, hey?”

      Porthos sighed for the fifth time-D’Artagnan had counted his sighs. He became curious to solve the problem.

      “Well now,” he said, “it seems, my dear friend, that something vexes you; you are ill, perhaps? That health, which-”

      “Excellent, my dear friend; better than ever. I could kill an ox with a blow of my fist.”

      “Well, then, family affairs, perhaps?”

      “Family! I have, happily, only myself in the world to care for.”

      “But what makes you sigh?”

      “My dear fellow,” replied Porthos, “to be candid with you, I am not happy.”

      “You are not happy, Porthos? You who have chateau, meadows, mountains, woods-you who have forty thousand francs a year-you-are-not-happy?”

      “My dear friend, all those things I have, but I am a hermit in the midst of superfluity.”

      “Surrounded, I suppose, only by clodhoppers, with whom you could not associate.”

      Porthos turned rather pale and drank off a large glass of wine.

      “No; but just think, there are paltry country squires who have all some title or another and pretend to go back as far as Charlemagne, or at least to Hugh Capet. When I first came here; being the last comer, it was for me to make the first advances. I made them, but you know, my dear friend, Madame du Vallon-”

      Porthos, in pronouncing these words, seemed to gulp down something.

      “Madame du Vallon was of doubtful gentility. She had, in her first marriage-I don’t think, D’Artagnan, I am telling you anything new-married a lawyer; they thought that ‘nauseous;’ you can understand that’s a word bad enough to make one kill thirty thousand men. I have killed two, which has made people hold their tongues, but has not made me their friend. So that I have no society; I live alone; I am sick of it-my mind preys on itself.”

      D’Artagnan smiled. He now saw where the breastplate was weak, and prepared the blow.

      “But now,” he said, “that you are a widower, your wife’s connection cannot injure you.”

      “Yes, but understand me; not being of a race of historic fame, like the De Courcys, who were content to be plain sirs, or the Rohans, who didn’t wish to be dukes, all these people, who are all either vicomtes or comtes go before me at church in all the ceremonies, and I can say nothing to them. Ah! If I only were a-”

      “A baron, don’t you mean?” cried D’Artagnan, finishing his friend’s sentence.

      “Ah!” cried Porthos; “would I were but a baron!”

      “Well, my friend, I am come to give you this very title which you wish for so much.”

      Porthos gave a start that shook the room; two or three bottles fell and were broken. Mousqueton ran thither, hearing the noise.

      Porthos waved his hand to Mousqueton to pick up the bottles.

      “I am glad to see,” said D’Artagnan, “that you have still that honest lad with you.”

      “He is my steward,” replied Porthos; “he will never leave me. Go away now, Mouston.”

      “So he’s called Mouston,” thought D’Artagnan; “‘tis too long a word to pronounce ‘Mousqueton.’”

      “Well,” he said aloud, “let us resume our conversation later, your people may suspect something; there may be spies about. You can suppose, Porthos, that what I have to say relates to most important matters.”

      “Devil take them; let us walk in the park,” answered Porthos, “for the sake of digestion.”

      “Egad,” said D’Artagnan, “the park is like everything else and there are as many fish in your pond as rabbits in your warren; you are a happy man, my friend since you have not only retained your love of the chase, but acquired that of fishing.”

      “My friend,” replied Porthos, “I leave fishing to Mousqueton, – it is a vulgar pleasure, – but I shoot sometimes; that is to say, when I am dull, and I sit on one of those marble seats, have my gun brought to me, my favorite dog, and I shoot rabbits.”

      “Really, how very amusing!”

      “Yes,” replied Porthos, with a sigh, “it is amusing.”

      D’Artagnan now no longer counted the sighs. They were innumerable.

      “However, what had you to say to me?” he resumed; “let us return to that subject.”

      “With pleasure,” replied D’Artagnan; “I must, however, first frankly tell you that you must change your mode of life.”

      “How?”

      “Go into harness again, gird on your sword, run after adventures, and leave as in old times a little of your fat on the roadside.”

      “Ah! hang it!” said Porthos.

      “I see you are spoiled, dear friend; you are corpulent, your arm has no longer that movement of which the late cardinal’s guards have so many proofs.”

      “Ah! my fist is strong enough I swear,” cried Porthos, extending a hand like a shoulder of mutton.

      “So much the better.”

      “Are we then to go to war?”

      “By my troth, yes.”

      “Against whom?”

      “Are you a politician, friend?”

      “Not in the least.”

      “Are you for Mazarin or for the princes?”

      “I am for no one.”

      “That is to say, you are for us. Well, I tell you that I come to you from the cardinal.”

      This speech was heard by Porthos in the same sense as if it had still been in the year 1640 and related to the true cardinal.

      “Ho! ho! What are the wishes of his eminence?”

      “He wishes to have you in his service.”

      “And who spoke to him of me?”

      “Rochefort-you remember him?”

      “Yes, pardieu! It was he who gave us so much trouble and kept us on the road so much; you gave him three sword-wounds in three separate engagements.”

      “But you know he is now our friend?”

      “No, I didn’t know that. So he cherishes no resentment?”

      “You are mistaken, Porthos,” said D’Artagnan. “It is I who cherish no resentment.”

      Porthos didn’t understand any too clearly; but then we know that understanding was not his strong point. “You say, then,” he continued, “that the Count de Rochefort spoke of me to the cardinal?”

      “Yes, and the queen, too.”

      “The queen, do you say?”

      “To inspire us with confidence she has even placed in Mazarin’s hands that famous diamond-you remember all about it-that I once sold to Monsieur des Essarts and of which, I don’t know how, she has regained possession.”

      “But it seems to me,” said Porthos, “that she would have done much better if

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