ge! I should like to
strangle somebody or smash something!"

"Neither strangle anybody nor smash anything, Porthos; I will manage it
all; put on one of your thirty-six suits, and come with me to a tailor."

"Pooh! my agent has seen them all this morning."

"Even M. Percerin?"

"Who is M. Percerin?"

"Oh! only the king's tailor!"

"Oh, ah, yes," said Porthos, who wished to appear to know the king's
tailor, but now heard his name mentioned for the first time; "to M.
Percerin's, by Jove! I was afraid he would be too busy."

"Doubtless he will be; but be at ease, Porthos; he will do for me
what he wouldn't do for another. Only you must allow yourself to be
measured!"

"Ah!" said Porthos, with a sigh, "'tis vexatious, but what would you
have me do?"

"Do? As others do; as the king does."

"What! do they measure the king, too? does he put up with it?"

"The king is a beau, my good friend, and so are you, too, whatever you
may say about it."

Porthos smiled triumphantly. "Let us go to the king's tailor," he said;
"and since he measures the king, I think, by my faith, I may do worse
than allow him to measure _me!_"

Chapter III. Who Messire Jean Percerin Was.

The king's tailor, Messire Jean Percerin, occupied a rather large house
in the Rue St. Honore, near the Rue de l'Arbre Sec. He was a man
of great taste in elegant stuffs, embroideries, and velvets, being
hereditary tailor to the king. The preferment of his house reached as
far back as the time of Charles IX.; from whose reign dated, as we know,
fancy in _bravery_ difficult enough to gratify. The Percerin of that
period was a Huguenot, like Ambrose Pare, and had been spared by the
Queen of Navarre, the beautiful Margot, as they used to write and say,
too, in those days; because, in sooth, he was the only one who could
make for her those wonderful riding-habits which she so loved to wear,
seeing that they were marvelously well suited to hide certain anatomical
defects, which the Queen of Navarre used very studiously to conceal.
Percerin being saved, made, out of gratitude, some beautiful black
bodices, very inexpensively indeed, for Queen Catherine, who ended by
being pleased at the preservation of a Huguenot people, on whom she had
long looked with detestation. But Percerin was a very prudent man;
and having heard it said that there was no more dangerous sign for a
Protestant than to be smiled up on by Catherine, and having observed
that her smiles w