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“Well my friend, you know the old proverb: Unlucky at play, lucky in love.You are too happy in your amours not to suffer an occasional reverse in dicing. After all you’re a very fortunate fellow! Surely your duchess will not fail but come to your rescue.”

“To tell you the truth, my friend, I’ve had a spot of bad luck in that direction,” Porthos confessed in the most careless and airy tone imaginable. “I did write to her to send me some fifty louis or so which I needed very much, because as you know I was in a tight spot—”

“And—?”

“—and I can only conclude that the Duchess must have been away in the country because I received no answer—”

“Well, well!”

“Having heard nothing from her, I sent her a second letter yesterday. I explained that matters were even more urgent than I had said in letter Number One. But you my friend, what about you? I must confess that, confined to my bed as I was, I felt very anxious about you.”

“Oh, I’ve been very well. But your landlord, my dear Porthos,” D’Artagnan pointed to the full saucepans and empty bottles, “your landlord seems to be doing his share, eh?”

“The host is doing an indifferent job, my friend, his treatment of us has been so-so. Four days ago he had the cheek to present his bill and I had to toss both him and the document out of the door of my apartment. This made me a victor of sorts and a conqueror, if you like; but as you see, I am in constant fear of being stormed out of my stronghold and I have perforce to remain armed to the teeth night and day.”

D’Artagnan laughed jovially as he asked: “Don’t you sally forth occasionally, my friend?” And once again he surveyed the empty bottles and the fragrant saucepans.

“Not I, alas,” Porthos vouchsafed. “As you see, my wretched knee nails me to my bed. But Mousqueton does an occasional job of foraging and so we do not lack for provisions.” Porthos turned to his lackey: “Mousqueton, as you see, we have reinforcements; you must produce rations for Monsieur D’Artagnan who is doubtless both hungry and thirsty.”

“Mousqueton, a favor, I beg you?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Pray tell Planchet how you go about foraging; your recipe would be invaluable to him. I may be besieged and beleaguered at any time, just as Monsieur Porthos has been; and if this happened, I would welcome attentions from Planchet such as those you lavish on your master.”

Mousqueton stared modestly at the ground.

“It’s no trick, Monsieur,” he said, “all you need is to be nimble and spry. I happen to have been brought up in the country and my father in his leisure moments used to do a bit of poaching now and again—”

“What did he do when he worked?”

“He toiled at a job I have always thought a very prosperous one.”

“Namely?”

Mousqueton fetched up a deep sigh and told the heroic story of his father. It was at the time of the Wars of Religion; Catholics and Huguenots were vying with one another in violence. Monsieur Mousqueton père watched the Catholics exterminating the Huguenots and vice-versa all in the name of God. He evolved and compounded a mixed belief which permitted him now to be Catholic, now Protestant.

He was accustomed to strolling behind the hedges that border the roads, his blunderbuss over his shoulder. His activity was at once limited and unlimited by the choice between two positions. If he passed a Catholic, the Protestant religion immediately prevailed in his mind; he would lower his gun and, when he was within ten paces of the stranger, he would engage in a conversation which invariably resulted in the stranger’s parting with his purse in order to save his life. If, on the other hand, he came upon a Protestant, in all fairness to Monsieur Mousqueton père, his son was compelled to admit that his sire was so overcome with a fervor of Catholic zeal that he found it difficult to conceive how he had attacked a follower of the Mother Church just a few moments before.

“My father was a stout believer in the superiority of our Holy Catholic faith,” Mousqueton added sententiously. “And I myself am a devout