lanchet; "I thought he had seen me at
work."

"Yes, but I thought perhaps you had worn out all your courage the first
time."

"Monsieur shall see that upon occasion I have some left; only I beg
Monsieur not to be too prodigal of it if he wishes it to last long."

"Do you believe you have still a certain amount of it to expend this
evening?"

"I hope so, monsieur."

"Well, then, I count on you."

"At the appointed hour I shall be ready; only I believed that Monsieur
had but one horse in the Guard stables."

"Perhaps there is but one at this moment; but by this evening there will
be four."

"It appears that our journey was a remounting journey, then?"

"Exactly so," said d'Artagnan; and nodding to Planchet, he went out.

M. Bonacieux was at his door. D'Artagnan's intention was to go out
without speaking to the worthy mercer; but the latter made so polite and
friendly a salutation that his tenant felt obliged, not only to stop,
but to enter into conversation with him.

Besides, how is it possible to avoid a little condescension toward a
husband whose pretty wife has appointed a meeting with you that
same evening at St. Cloud, opposite D'Estrees's pavilion? D'Artagnan
approached him with the most amiable air he could assume.

The conversation naturally fell upon the incarceration of the poor
man. M. Bonacieux, who was ignorant that d'Artagnan had overheard his
conversation with the stranger of Meung, related to his young tenant the
persecutions of that monster, M. de Laffemas, whom he never ceased
to designate, during his account, by the title of the "cardinal's
executioner," and expatiated at great length upon the Bastille, the
bolts, the wickets, the dungeons, the gratings, the instruments of
torture.

D'Artagnan listened to him with exemplary complaisance, and when he
had finished said, "And Madame Bonacieux, do you know who carried her
off?--For I do not forget that I owe to that unpleasant circumstance the
good fortune of having made your acquaintance."

"Ah!" said Bonacieux, "they took good care not to tell me that; and my
wife, on her part, has sworn to me by all that's sacred that she does
not know. But you," continued M. Bonacieux, in a tine of perfect good
fellowship, "what has become of you all these days? I have not seen you
nor your friends, and I don't think you could gather all that dust
that I saw Planchet brush off your boots yesterday from the pavement of
Paris."

"You are right, my de