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?"
"That's the man, my dear fellow; he was an annoyance to the cardinal. Unfortunately, I didn't crush him flat. It seems that he came to himself and that he will continue to be an annoyance."
"See that, now!" said Porthos; "and I turned my horse aside from going plump on to him! That will be for another time."
"He owed me for the councillor, the pettifogger!"
"But," said Porthos, "if he was not crushed completely ----"
"Ah! Monsieur de Richelieu would have said, `Five hundred crowns for the councillor.' Well, let's say no more about it. How much were your animals worth, Porthos?"
"Ah, if poor Musqueton were here he could tell you to a fraction."
"No matter; you can tell within ten crowns."
"Why, Vulcan and Bayard cost me each about two hundred pistoles, and putting Phoebus at a hundred and fifty, we should be pretty near the amount."
"There will remain, then, four hundred and fifty pistoles," said D'Artagnan, contentedly.
"Yes," said Porthos, "but there are the equipments."
"That is very true. Well, how much for the equipments?"
"If we say one hundred pistoles for the three ---- "
"Good for the hundred pistoles; there remains, then, three hundred and fifty."
Porthos made a sign of assent.
"We will give the fifty pistoles to the hostess for our expenses," said D'Artagnan, "and share the three hundred."
"We will share," said Porthos.
"A paltry piece of business!" murmured D'Artagnan crumpling his note.
"Pooh!" said Porthos, "it is always that. But tell me ---- "
"What?"
"Didn't he speak of me in any way?"
"Ah! yes, indeed!" cried D'Artagnan, who was afraid of disheartening his friend by telling him that the cardinal had not breathed a word about him; "yes, surely, he said ---- "
"He said?" resumed Porthos.
"Stop, I want to remember his exact words. He said, `As to your friend, tell him he may sleep in peace.'"
"Good, very good," said Porthos; "that signified as clear as daylight that he still intends to make me a baron."
At this moment nine o'clock struck. D'Artagnan started.
"Ah, yes," said Porthos, "there is nine o'clock. We have a rendezvous, you remember, at the Place Royale."
"Ah! stop! hold your peace, Porthos, don't remind me of it;
'tis that which has made me so cross since yesterday. I shall not go."
"Why?" asked Porthos.
"Because it is a grievous thing for me to meet again those two men who caused the failure of our enterprise."
"And yet," said Porthos, "neither of them had any advantage over us. I still had a loaded pistol and you were in full fight, sword in hand."
"Yes," said D'Artagnan; "but what if this rendezvous had some hidden purpose?"
"Oh!" said Porthos, "you can't think that, D'Artagnan!"
D'Artagnan did not believe Athos to be capable of a deception, but he sought an excuse for not going to the rendezvous.
"We must go," said the superb lord of Bracieux, "lest they should say we were afraid. We who have faced fifty foes on the high road can well meet two in the Place Royale."
"Yes, yes, but they took part with the princes without apprising us of it. Athos and Aramis have played a game with me which alarms me. We discovered yesterday the truth; what is the use of going to-day to learn something else?"
