"And you would kill him. And a fine affair that would be. So much the
better. What should I care? Kill any one you please, my boy, if it gives
you any pleasure. It is exactly like a man with a toothache, who keeps
on saying, 'Oh! what torture I am suffering. I could bite a piece of
iron in half.' My answer always is, 'Bite, my friend, bite; the tooth
will remain all the same.'"

"I shall not kill any one, monsieur," said Raoul, gloomily.

"Yes, yes! you now assume a different tone: instead of killing, you will
get killed yourself, I suppose you mean? Very fine, indeed! How much
I should regret you! Of course I should go about all day, saying, 'Ah!
what a fine stupid fellow that Bragelonne was! as great a stupid as I
ever met with. I have passed my whole life almost in teaching him how
to hold and use his sword properly, and the silly fellow has got himself
spitted like a lark.' Go, then, Raoul, go and get yourself disposed of,
if you like. I hardly know who can have taught you logic, but deuce take
me if your father has not been regularly robbed of his money."

Raoul buried his face in his hands, murmuring: "No, no; I have not a
single friend in the world."

"Oh! bah!" said D'Artagnan.

"I meet with nothing but raillery or indifference."

"Idle fancies, monsieur. I do not laugh at you, although I am a Gascon.
And, as for being indifferent, if I were so, I should have sent you
about your business a quarter of an hour ago, for you would make a man
who was out of his senses with delight as dull as possible, and would be
the death of one who was out of spirits. How now, young man! do you wish
me to disgust you with the girl you are attached to, and to teach you to
execrate the whole sex who constitute the honor and happiness of human
life?"

"Oh! tell me, monsieur, and I will bless you."

"Do you think, my dear fellow, that I can have crammed into my brain all
about the carpenter, and the painter, and the staircase, and a hundred
other similar tales of the same kind?"

"A carpenter! what do you mean?"

"Upon my word I don't know; some one told me there was a carpenter who
made an opening through a certain flooring."

"In La Valliere's room!"

"Oh! I don't know where."

"In the king's apartment, perhaps?"

"Of course, if it were in the king's apartment, I should tell you, I
suppose."

"In whose room, then?"

"I have told you for the last hour that I know nothing of the whole
affair."

"But the painter,