name; that is the name of a mountain," cried
the poor questioner, who began to lose his head.

"That is my name," said Athos, quietly.

"But you said that your name was d'Artagnan."

"Who, I?"

"Yes, you."

"Somebody said to me, 'You are Monsieur d'Artagnan?' I answered, 'You
think so?' My guards exclaimed that they were sure of it. I did not wish
to contradict them; besides, I might be deceived."

"Monsieur, you insult the majesty of justice."

"Not at all," said Athos, calmly.

"You are Monsieur d'Artagnan."

"You see, monsieur, that you say it again."

"But I tell you, Monsieur Commissary," cried Bonacieux, in his turn,
"there is not the least doubt about the matter. Monsieur d'Artagnan is
my tenant, although he does not pay me my rent--and even better on
that account ought I to know him. Monsieur d'Artagnan is a young man,
scarcely nineteen or twenty, and this gentleman must be thirty at
least. Monsieur d'Artagnan is in Monsieur Dessessart's Guards, and this
gentleman is in the company of Monsieur de Treville's Musketeers. Look
at his uniform, Monsieur Commissary, look at his uniform!"

"That's true," murmured the commissary; "PARDIEU, that's true."

At this moment the door was opened quickly, and a messenger, introduced
by one of the gatekeepers of the Bastille, gave a letter to the
commissary.

"Oh, unhappy woman!" cried the commissary.

"How? What do you say? Of whom do you speak? It is not of my wife, I
hope!"

"On the contrary, it is of her. Yours is a pretty business."

"But," said the agitated mercer, "do me the pleasure, monsieur, to tell
me how my own proper affair can become worse by anything my wife does
while I am in prison?"

"Because that which she does is part of a plan concerted between you--of
an infernal plan."

"I swear to you, Monsieur Commissary, that you are in the profoundest
error, that I know nothing in the world about what my wife had to do,
that I am entirely a stranger to what she has done; and that if she has
committed any follies, I renounce her, I abjure her, I curse her!"

"Bah!" said Athos to the commissary, "if you have no more need of me,
send me somewhere. Your Monsieur Bonacieux is very tiresome."

The commissary designated by the same gesture Athos and Bonacieux, "Let
them be guarded more closely than ever."

"And yet," said Athos, with his habitual calmness, "if it be Monsieur
d'Artagnan who is concerned in this matter, I do not perceive how I can
t