are still
gaping with wonder at the news, you come and tell us today, 'Let us say
no more about it.'"

"Well, then, let us talk about it, since you desire it," replied Aramis,
patiently.

"This Rochefort," cried Porthos, "if I were the esquire of poor Chalais,
should pass a minute or two very uncomfortably with me."

"And you--you would pass rather a sad quarter-hour with the Red Duke,"
replied Aramis.

"Oh, the Red Duke! Bravo! Bravo! The Red Duke!" cried Porthos, clapping
his hands and nodding his head. "The Red Duke is capital. I'll circulate
that saying, be assured, my dear fellow. Who says this Aramis is not
a wit? What a misfortune it is you did not follow your first vocation;
what a delicious abbe you would have made!"

"Oh, it's only a temporary postponement," replied Aramis; "I shall
be one someday. You very well know, Porthos, that I continue to study
theology for that purpose."

"He will be one, as he says," cried Porthos; "he will be one, sooner or
later."

"Sooner." said Aramis.

"He only waits for one thing to determine him to resume his cassock,
which hangs behind his uniform," said another Musketeer.

"What is he waiting for?" asked another.

"Only till the queen has given an heir to the crown of France."

"No jesting upon that subject, gentlemen," said Porthos; "thank God the
queen is still of an age to give one!"

"They say that Monsieur de Buckingham is in France," replied Aramis,
with a significant smile which gave to this sentence, apparently so
simple, a tolerably scandalous meaning.

"Aramis, my good friend, this time you are wrong," interrupted Porthos.
"Your wit is always leading you beyond bounds; if Monsieur de Treville
heard you, you would repent of speaking thus."

"Are you going to give me a lesson, Porthos?" cried Aramis, from whose
usually mild eye a flash passed like lightning.

"My dear fellow, be a Musketeer or an abbe. Be one or the other, but not
both," replied Porthos. "You know what Athos told you the other day; you
eat at everybody's mess. Ah, don't be angry, I beg of you, that would be
useless; you know what is agreed upon between you, Athos and me. You go
to Madame d'Aguillon's, and you pay your court to her; you go to Madame
de Bois-Tracy's, the cousin of Madame de Chevreuse, and you pass for
being far advanced in the good graces of that lady. Oh, good Lord!
Don't trouble yourself to reveal your good luck; no one asks for your
secret-all the world knows your