𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝 27
The four old Friends prepare to meet again.
Well," said Porthos, seated in the courtyard of the Hotel de la Chevrette, to D'Artagnan, who, with a long and melancholy face, had returned from the Palais Royal; "did he receive you ungraciously, my dear friend?"
"I'faith, yes! a brute, that cardinal. What are you eating there, Porthos?"
"I am dipping a biscuit in a glass of Spanish wine; do the same."
"You are right. Gimblou, a glass of wine."
"Well, how has all gone off?"
"Zounds! you know there's only one way of saying things, so I went in and said, 'My lord, we were not the strongest party.'
"'Yes, I know that,' he said, 'but give me the particulars.'
"You know, Porthos, I could not give him the particulars without naming our friends; to name them would be to commit them to ruin, so I merely said they were fifty and we were two.
"'There was firing, nevertheless, I heard,' he said; 'and your swords--they saw the light of day, I presume?'
"'That is, the night, my lord,' I answered.
"'Ah!' cried the cardinal, 'I thought you were a Gascon, my friend?'
"'I am a Gascon,' said I, 'only when I succeed.' The answer pleased him and he laughed.
"'That will teach me,' he said, 'to have my guards provided with better horses; for if they had been able to keep up with you and if each one of them had done as much as you and your friend, you would have kept your word and would have brought him back to me dead or alive.'"
"Well, there's nothing bad in that, it seems to me," said Porthos.
"Oh, mon Dieu! no, nothing at all. It was the way in which he spoke. It is incredible how these biscuit soak up wine! They are veritable sponges! Gimblou, another bottle."
The bottle was brought with a promptness which showed the degree of consideration D'Artagnan enjoyed in the establishment. He continued:
"So I was going away, but he called me back.
"'You have had three horses foundered or killed?' he asked me.
"'Yes, my lord.'
"'How much were they worth?'"
"Why," said Porthos, "that was very good of him, it seems to me."
"'A thousand pistoles,' I said."
"A thousand pistoles!" Porthos exclaimed. "Oh! oh! that is a large sum. If he knew anything about horses he would dispute the price."
"Faith! he was very much inclined to do so, the contemptible fellow. He made a great start and looked at me. I also looked at him; then he understood, and putting his hand into a drawer, he took from it a quantity of notes on a bank in Lyons."
"For a thousand pistoles?"
"For a thousand pistoles--just that amount, the beggar; not one too many."
"And you have them?"
"They are here."
"Upon my word, I think he acted very generously."
"Generously! to men who had risked their lives for him, and besides had done him a great service?"
"A great service--what was that?"
"Why, it seems that I crushed for him a parliament councillor."
"What! that little man in black that you upset at the corner of Saint Jean Cemetery?"
