ys has the heartache; it is
deplorable to see a king sighing from morning till night without saying
once in course of the day, ventre-saint-gris! corboeuf! or anything to
rouse one."

"Was that the reason why you quitted the service, monsieur le
chevalier?"

"Yes."

"But you yourself, M. d'Artagnan, are throwing the handle after the axe;
you will not make a fortune."

"Who? I?" replied D'Artagnan, in a careless tone; "I am settled--I had
some family property."

Raoul looked at him. The poverty of D'Artagnan was proverbial. A Gascon,
he exceeded in ill-luck all the gasconnades of France and Navarre; Raoul
had a hundred times heard Job and D'Artagnan named together, as the
twins Romulus and Remus. D'Artagnan caught Raoul's look of astonishment.

"And has not your father told you I have been in England?"

"Yes, monsieur le chevalier."

"And that I there met with a very lucky chance?"

"No, monsieur, I did not know that."

"Yes, a very worthy friend of mine, a great nobleman, the viceroy of
Scotland and Ireland, has endowed me with an inheritance."

"An inheritance?"

"And a good one, too."

"Then you are rich?"

"Bah!"

"Receive my sincere congratulation."

"Thank you! Look, that is my house."

"Place de Greve?"

"Yes, don't you like this quarter?"

"On the contrary, the look-out over the water is pleasant. Oh! what a
pretty old house!"

"The sign Notre Dame; it is an old cabaret, which I have transformed
into a private house in two days."

"But the cabaret is still open?"

"Pardieu!"

"And where do you lodge, then?

"I? I lodge with Planchet."

"You said, just now, 'This is my house.'"

"I said so, because, in fact, it is my house. I have bought it."

"Ah!" said Raoul.

"At ten years' purchase, my dear Raoul; a superb affair, I bought the
house for thirty thousand livres; it has a garden which opens to the
Rue de la Mortillerie; the cabaret lets for a thousand livres, with the
first story; the garret, or second floor, for five hundred livres."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, indeed."

"Five hundred livres for a garret? Why, it is not habitable."

"Therefore no one inhabits it, only, you see this garret has two windows
which look out upon the Place."

"Yes, monsieur."

"Well, then, every time anybody is broken on the wheel or hung,
quartered, or burnt, these two windows let for twenty pistoles."

"Oh!" said Raoul, with horror.

"It is disgusting, is it not?" said D'Artagnan.

"Oh!" r