“Ah, ah!”
“Planchet, I am like that hare—I am thinking.”
“You are thinking, you say?” said Planchet, uneasily.
“Yes; your house is dull enough to drive people to think; you will admit that, I hope.”
“And yet, Monsieur, you have a lookout upon the street.”
“Yes; and wonderfully interesting that is, of course.”
“But it is no less true, Monsieur, that, if you were living at the back of the house, you would bore yourself—I mean, you would think—more than ever.”
“Upon my word, Planchet, I hardly know that.”
“Still,” said the grocer, “if your reflections are at all like those which led you to restore King Charles II—” and Planchet finished by a little laugh which was not without its meaning.
“Ah! Planchet, my friend,” returned d’Artagnan, “you are getting ambitious.”
“Is there no other king to be restored, M. d’Artagnan—no second Monck to be packed up, like a salted hog, in a deal box?”
“No, my dear Planchet; all the kings are seated on their respective thrones; less comfortably so, perhaps, than I am upon this chair; but, at all events, there they are.” And d’Artagnan sighed deeply.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Planchet, “you are making me very uneasy.”
“You are very good, Planchet.”
“I begin to suspect something.”
“What is it?”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan, you are getting thin.”
“Oh!” said d’Artagnan, striking his chest which sounded like an empty cuirass, “it is impossible, Planchet.”
“Ah!” said Planchet, slightly overcome; “if you were to get thin in my house—”
“Well?”
“I should do something rash.”
“What would you do? Tell me.”
“I should look out for the man who was the cause of all your anxieties.”
“Ah! according to your account, I am anxious now.”
“Yes, you are anxious; and you are getting thin, visibly getting thin. Malaga! if you go on getting thin, in this way, I will take my sword in my hand, and go straight to M. d’Herblay, and have it out with him.”
“What!” said M. d’Artagnan, starting in his chair; “what’s that you say? And what has M. d’Herblay’s name to do with your groceries?”
“Just as you please. Get angry if you like, or call me names, if you prefer it; but, the deuce is in it. I know what I know.”
D’Artagnan had, during this second outburst of Planchet’s, so placed himself as not to lose a single look of his face; that is, he sat with both his hands resting on both his knees, and his head stretched out towards the grocer. “Come, explain yourself,” he said, “and tell me how you could possibly utter such a blasphemy. M. d’Herblay, your old master, my friend, an ecclesiastic, a musketeer turned bishop—do you mean to say you would raise your sword against him, Planchet?”
“I could raise my sword against my own father, when I see you in such a state as you are now.”
“M. d’Herblay, a gentleman!”
“It’s all the same to me whether he’s a gentleman or not. He gives you the blue devils, that is all I know. And the blue devils make people get thin. Malaga! I have no notion of M. d’Artagnan leaving my house thinner than when he entered it.”
“How does he give me the blue devils, as you call it? Come, explain, explain.”
“You have had the nightmare during the last three nights.”
“I?”
“Yes, you; and in your nightmare you called out, several times, ‘Aramis, deceitful Aramis!’ ”
“Ah! I said that, did I?” murmured d’Artagnan, uneasily.
“Yes, those very words, upon my honor.”
“Well, what else? You know the saying, Planchet, ‘dreams go by contraries.’ ”
“Not so; for every time, during the last three days, when you went out, you have not once failed to ask me, on your return, ‘Have you seen M. d’Herblay?’ or else ‘Have you received any letters for me from M. d’Herblay?’ ”
“Well, it is very natural I should take an interest in my old friend,” said d’Artagnan.
“Of course; but not to such an extent as to get thin on that account.”
“Planchet, I’ll get fatter; I give you my word of honor I will.”
“Very well, Monsieur, I accept it; for I know that when you give your word of honor, it is sacred.”
“I will not dream of Aramis any more; and I will never ask you again if there are any letters from M. d’Herblay; but on condition that you explain one thing to me.”
“Tell me what it is, Monsieur?”
“I am a great observer; and just now you made use of a very singular oath, which is unusual for you.”
“You mean Malaga! I suppose?”
“Precisely.”
“It is the oath I have used ever since I have been a grocer.”
“Very proper, too; it is the name of a dried grape, or raisin, I believe?”
“It is my most ferocious oath; when I have once said Malaga! I am a man no longer.”
“Still, I never knew you use that oath before.”
“Very likely not, Monsieur. I had a present made me of it,” said Planchet; and, as he pronounced these words, he winked his eye with a cunning expression, which thoroughly awakened d’Artagnan’s attention.
“Come, come, M. Planchet.”
“Why, I am not like you, Monsieur,” said Planchet. “I don’t pass my life in thinking.”
“You do wrong, then.”
“I mean in boring myself to death. We have but a very short time to live—why not make the best of it?”
“You are an Epicurean philosopher, I begin to think, Planchet.”
“Why not? My hand is still as steady as ever; I can write, and can weigh out my sugar and spices; my foot is firm; I can dance and walk about; my stomach has its teeth still, for I eat and digest very well; my heart is not quite hardened. Well, Monsieur?”
“Well, what, Planchet?”
“Why, you see—” said the grocer, rubbing his hands together.
D’Artagnan crossed one leg over the other, and said, “Planchet, my friend, I am unnerved with extreme surprise; for you are revealing yourself to me under a perfectly new light.”
Planchet, flattered in the highest degree by this remark, continued to rub his hands very hard together. “Ah, ah,” he said, “because I happen to be only slow, you think me, perhaps, a positive fool.”
“Very good, Planchet; very well reasoned.”
“Follow my idea, Monsieur, if you please. I said
