Essential Novelists - Alexandre Dumas. Alexandre Dumas

of the thesis.”

      “Since then,” continued Aramis, “I have lived very agreeably. I have begun a poem in verses of one syllable. That is rather difficult, but the merit in all things consists in the difficulty. The matter is gallant. I will read you the first canto. It has four hundred lines, and lasts a minute.”

      “My faith, my dear Aramis,” said d’Artagnan, who detested verses almost as much as he did Latin, “add to the merit of the difficulty that of the brevity, and you are sure that your poem will at least have two merits.”

      “You will see,” continued Aramis, “that it breathes irreproachable passion. And so, my friends, we return to Paris? Bravo! I am ready. We are going to rejoin that good fellow, Porthos. So much the better. You can’t think how I have missed him, the great simpleton. To see him so self-satisfied reconciles me with myself. He would not sell his horse; not for a kingdom! I think I can see him now, mounted upon his superb animal and seated in his handsome saddle. I am sure he will look like the Great Mogul!”

      They made a halt for an hour to refresh their horses. Aramis discharged his bill, placed Bazin in the cart with his comrades, and they set forward to join Porthos.

      They found him up, less pale than when d’Artagnan left him after his first visit, and seated at a table on which, though he was alone, was spread enough for four persons. This dinner consisted of meats nicely dressed, choice wines, and superb fruit.

      “Ah, PARDIEU!” said he, rising, “you come in the nick of time, gentlemen. I was just beginning the soup, and you will dine with me.”

      “Oh, oh!” said d’Artagnan, “Mousqueton has not caught these bottles with his lasso. Besides, here is a piquant FRICANDEAU and a fillet of beef.”

      “I am recruiting myself,” said Porthos, “I am recruiting myself. Nothing weakens a man more than these devilish strains. Did you ever suffer from a strain, Athos?”

      “Never! Though I remember, in our affair of the Rue Ferou, I received a sword wound which at the end of fifteen or eighteen days produced the same effect.”

      “But this dinner was not intended for you alone, Porthos?” said Aramis.

      “No,” said Porthos, “I expected some gentlemen of the neighborhood, who have just sent me word they could not come. You will take their places and I shall not lose by the exchange. HOLA, Mousqueton, seats, and order double the bottles!”

      “Do you know what we are eating here?” said Athos, at the end of ten minutes.

      “PARDIEU!” replied d’Artagnan, “for my part, I am eating veal garnished with shrimps and vegetables.”

      “And I some lamb chops,” said Porthos.

      “And I a plain chicken,” said Aramis.

      “You are all mistaken, gentlemen,” answered Athos, gravely; “you are eating horse.”

      “Eating what?” said d’Artagnan.

      “Horse!” said Aramis, with a grimace of disgust.

      Porthos alone made no reply.

      “Yes, horse. Are we not eating a horse, Porthos? And perhaps his saddle, therewith.”

      “No, gentlemen, I have kept the harness,” said Porthos.

      “My faith,” said Aramis, “we are all alike. One would think we had tipped the wink.”

      “What could I do?” said Porthos. “This horse made my visitors ashamed of theirs, and I don’t like to humiliate people.”

      “Then your duchess is still at the waters?” asked d’Artagnan.

      “Still,” replied Porthos. “And, my faith, the governor of the province—one of the gentlemen I expected today—seemed to have such a wish for him, that I gave him to him.”

      “Gave him?” cried d’Artagnan.

      “My God, yes, GAVE, that is the word,” said Porthos; “for the animal was worth at least a hundred and fifty louis, and the stingy fellow would only give me eighty.”

      “Without the saddle?” said Aramis.

      “Yes, without the saddle.”

      “You will observe, gentlemen,” said Athos, “that Porthos has made the best bargain of any of us.”

      And then commenced a roar of laughter in which they all joined, to the astonishment of poor Porthos; but when he was informed of the cause of their hilarity, he shared it vociferously according to his custom.

      “There is one comfort, we are all in cash,” said d’Artagnan.

      “Well, for my part,” said Athos, “I found Aramis’s Spanish wine so good that I sent on a hamper of sixty bottles of it in the wagon with the lackeys. That has weakened my purse.”

      “And I,” said Aramis, “imagined that I had given almost my last sou to the church of Montdidier and the Jesuits of Amiens, with whom I had made engagements which I ought to have kept. I have ordered Masses for myself, and for you, gentlemen, which will be said, gentlemen, for which I have not the least doubt you will be marvelously benefited.”

      “And I,” said Porthos, “do you think my strain cost me nothing?—without reckoning Mousqueton’s wound, for which I had to have the surgeon twice a day, and who charged me double on account of that foolish Mousqueton having allowed himself a ball in a part which people generally only show to an apothecary; so I advised him to try never to get wounded there any more.”

      “Ay, ay!” said Athos, exchanging a smile with d’Artagnan and Aramis, “it is very clear you acted nobly with regard to the poor lad; that is like a good master.”

      “In short,” said Porthos, “when all my expenses are paid, I shall have, at most, thirty crowns left.”

      “And I about ten pistoles,” said Aramis.

      “Well, then it appears that we are the Croesuses of the society. How much have you left of your hundred pistoles, d’Artagnan?”

      “Of my hundred pistoles? Why, in the first place I gave you fifty.”

      “You think so?”

      “PARDIEU!”

      “Ah, that is true. I recollect.”

      “Then I paid the host six.”

      “What a brute of a host! Why did you give him six pistoles?”

      “You told me to give them to him.”

      “It is true; I am too good-natured. In brief, how much remains?”

      “Twenty-five pistoles,” said d’Artagnan.

      “And I,” said Athos, taking some small change from his pocket, “I—”

      “You? Nothing!”

      “My faith! So little that it is not worth reckoning with the general stock.”

      “Now, then, let us calculate how much we posses in all.”

      “Porthos?”

      “Thirty crowns.”

      “Aramis?”

      “Ten pistoles.”

      “And you, d’Artagnan?”

      “Twenty-five.”

      “That makes in all?” said Athos.

      “Four hundred and seventy-five livres,” said d’Artagnan, who reckoned like Archimedes.

      “On our arrival in Paris, we shall still have four hundred, besides the harnesses,” said Porthos.

      “But our