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“Tudieu!” thought Porthos, casting a glance at the three starvelings, for the errand boy, as one might well think, was not admitted to the honors of the magisterial table, “tudieu! if I were my cousin, I wouldn’t keep such gourmandizers. You’d think they were castaways who haven’t eaten for six weeks.”

Master Coquenard came in, pushed in his wheelchair by Mme Coquenard, whom Porthos, in his turn, went to help in rolling her husband up to the table.

He had no sooner come in than he began twitching his nose and jaws after the example of his clerks.

“Oho!” he said, “here’s an enticing soup!”

“What the devil do they find so extraordinary in this soup?” Porthos said to himself, looking at a pale broth, abundant but perfectly blind, on which a few sparse crusts floated like the islands of an archipelago.

Mme Coquenard smiled, and, at a sign from her, everyone sat down eagerly.

Master Coquenard was served first, then Porthos; then Mme Coquenard filled her plate and distributed the crusts, without broth, to the impatient clerks.

At that moment the dining room door creaked open by itself, and through the gap Porthos made out the little clerk, who, unable to take part in the feast, was eating his bread in the combined odors of the kitchen and the dining room.

After the soup, the servant girl brought a boiled chicken, a magnificence that made the guests’ eyes widen so much they looked as though they might pop.

“One can see you love your family, Mme Coquenard,” said the procureur with an almost tragic smile. “This is quite a courtesy you’ve done your cousin.”

The poor chicken was scrawny and clothed in that sort of thick, bristly hide that the bones can never pierce, for all their efforts. It must have taken a long time to find her on her perch, where she had withdrawn to die of old age.

“Devil take it,” thought Porthos, “there’s a sorry sight for you! I repect old age, but I’m not partial to having it boiled or roasted.”

And he looked around to see if his opinion was shared. But, quite to the contrary, he saw only burning eyes, devouring in advance this sublime chicken that was the object of his contempt.

Mme Coquenard drew the platter towards her, skillfully detached the two big black feet, which she put on her husband’s plate, severed the neck, which, together with the head, she set aside for herself, removed a wing for Porthos, and gave the animal back to the girl who had just brought it, so that it returned to the kitchen almost intact, and disappeared before the musketeer had time to examine the variations that disappointment brought to the faces around him, according to the characters and temperaments of those who felt it.

Instead of the chicken, a dish of broad beans made its entrance, an enormous dish, in which a few mutton bones, which one might at first have believed were accompanied by meat, made a semblance of appearing.

But the clerks were not fooled by this deception, and the look on their faces turned from mournful to resigned.

Mme Coquenard distributed this food to the young men with the moderation of a good housewife.

It came time for wine. From an extremely narrow stoneware bottle, Master Coquenard poured a third of a glass for each of the young men, and about as much again for himself, and the bottle passed at once to the side of Porthos and Mme Coquenard.

The young men filled this third of wine with water; then, when they had drunk half the glass, filled it again, and kept doing the same, thus coming, by the end of the meal, to swallowing a drink that had gone from the color of ruby to that of pink topaz.

Porthos timidly ate his chicken wing, and shivered when he felt the procureuse’s knee, which had just found his under the table. He also drank half a glass of this much spared wine, which he recognized as the horrible vintage of Montreuil, the terror of experienced palates.136

Master Coquenard watched him swallow this wine straight, and sighed.

“Would you care for some broad beans, cousin Porthos?” said Mme Coquenard, in a tone that said, “Believe