the procurators of the
period--meanness, stinginess, fasts; but as, after all, excepting some
few acts of economy which Porthos had always found very unseasonable,
the procurator's wife had been tolerably liberal--that is, be it
understood, for a procurator's wife--he hoped to see a household of a
highly comfortable kind.

And yet, at the very door the Musketeer began to entertain some doubts.
The approach was not such as to prepossess people--an ill-smelling, dark
passage, a staircase half-lighted by bars through which stole a glimmer
from a neighboring yard; on the first floor a low door studded with
enormous nails, like the principal gate of the Grand Chatelet.

Porthos knocked with his hand. A tall, pale clerk, his face shaded by a
forest of virgin hair, opened the door, and bowed with the air of a
man forced at once to respect in another lofty stature, which indicated
strength, the military dress, which indicated rank, and a ruddy
countenance, which indicated familiarity with good living.

A shorter clerk came behind the first, a taller clerk behind the second,
a stripling of a dozen years rising behind the third. In all, three
clerks and a half, which, for the time, argued a very extensive
clientage.

Although the Musketeer was not expected before one o'clock, the
procurator's wife had been on the watch ever since midday, reckoning
that the heart, or perhaps the stomach, of her lover would bring him
before his time.

Mme. Coquenard therefore entered the office from the house at the same
moment her guest entered from the stairs, and the appearance of the
worthy lady relieved him from an awkward embarrassment. The clerks
surveyed him with great curiosity, and he, not knowing well what to say
to this ascending and descending scale, remained tongue-tied.

"It is my cousin!" cried the procurator's wife. "Come in, come in,
Monsieur Porthos!"

The name of Porthos produced its effect upon the clerks, who began to
laugh; but Porthos turned sharply round, and every countenance quickly
recovered its gravity.

They reached the office of the procurator after having passed through
the antechamber in which the clerks were, and the study in which
they ought to have been. This last apartment was a sort of dark room,
littered with papers. On quitting the study they left the kitchen on the
right, and entered the reception room.

All these rooms, which communicated with one another, did not inspire
Porthos favorably. Word