The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [183]
“The devil, my dear Aramis!” he cried. “If these are the prunes they send you from Tours, please pay my compliments to the gardener who gathers them.”
“You are mistaken, my friend,” Aramis replied with his usual tact. “This is from my publisher. It represents my fee for that poem in one-syllable verse which I began when I was in Touraine.”
“Indeed! Well, my dear Aramis, your publisher is very generous, that’s all I can say!”
“What, Monsieur!” Bazin put in. “A poem sells for that much money. Would you believe it? Oh Monsieur, you always succeed in everything; why, you may become the peer of Monsieur de Voiture and Monsieur de Benserade. I like that idea! A poet is almost as good as an abbé. Ah, Monsieur Aramis, please become a poet for my sake, I beg of you.”
“Bazin, my friend, I believe you are interfering in our conversation.”
Aware that he was at fault, Bazin bowed contritely and withdrew.
“Well,” said D’Artagnan with a smile, “the productions you sell are worth their weight in gold. You are very lucky, my friend. But take care or you will lose that letter which is popping out of your doublet. You would not want to lose a letter from your publisher.”
Aramis blushed to the roots of his hair, stuffed the letter deep in his pocket, and buttoned up his doublet.
“My dear D’Artagnan, we will now join our friends, if you please,” he suggested. “As I am rich, we will resume our dinners in common until the rest of you are rich in turn.”
“By my faith, with great pleasure, Aramis. It is a long time since we ate a decent dinner and I, for my part, have a somewhat hazardous expedition for this evening. I confess, I shall not be sorry to fortify myself with a few bottles of old vintage Burgundy.”
“Agreed as to the old Burgundy,” said Aramis, his ideas of religious retreat dispelled as by magic by the sight of the letter and the gold. “I myself am not averse to old Burgundy, I may add.”
Having pocketed three or four double pistoles for current needs, he placed the others in the ebony box inlaid with mother-of-pearl, over the famous handkerchief which served him as a talisman.
The two friends repaired first to Athos who, still faithful to his vow of remaining closeted at home, undertook to have the dinner served there. As he was brilliantly conversant with all the details of gastronomy, neither D’Artagnan nor Aramis offered the slightest objection to entrusting him with this all-important task.
As they went off in search of Porthos, they met that worthy’s valet Mousqueton at the corner of the Rue du Bac, looking most shamefaced and piteous as he drove a mule and a horse before him. D’Artagnan uttered a cry of surprise which was not without a certain note of joy.
“Ah, my yellow horse!” he said. “Aramis, look at that horse!”
“Oh, what a frightful brute!”
“Well, my friend, it was that very horse I rode into Paris!”
“What?” said Mousqueton. “Monsieur knows this horse?”
“It is of a most original color,” Aramis opined. “I never saw another one with such a hide in all my life.”
“I can well believe it,” said D’Artagnan, “that is why I got three crowns for him. It must certainly have been for his hide; that carcass of his wouldn’t fetch eighteen livres. But how on earth did you get that nag, Mousqueton?”
“Ah, Monsieur,” Mousqueton answered ruefully, “pray do not speak to me about it! It is a frightful trick played on us by the husband of our duchess.”
“How is that, Mousqueton?”
“Yes, Monsieur, we are looked upon with a very favorable eye by a lady of quality, the Duchess de—but your pardon, gentlemen, my master has commanded me to be discreet so I dare not mention her name! She had forced us to accept a little keepsake, a magnificent Spanish jennet and an Andalusian mule, which were beautiful to look upon. The husband heard of the affair, confiscated our two splendid beasts on the way, and substituted these horrible animals.”
“Which you are returning to him?” D’Artagnan asked.