“What has he done for me, my friend,- done for me!” cried Porthos, enthusiastically.
“Yes, I ask you, what has he done for you?”
“My friend, he has done that which no tailor ever yet accomplished,- he has taken my measure without touching me!”
“Ah, bah! tell me how he did it!”
“First, then, they went, I don’t know where, for a number of lay figures, of all heights and sizes, hoping there would be one to suit mine; but the largest- that of the drum-major of the Swiss Guard- was two inches too short, and half a foot too slender.”
“Indeed!”
“It is exactly as I tell you, d’Artagnan; but he is a great man, or at the very least a great tailor, is this M. Moliere. He was not at all put at fault by the circumstance.”
“What did he do, then?”
“Oh, it is a very simple matter! I’ faith, ’tis an unheard of thing that people should have been so stupid as not to have discovered this method from the first. What annoyance and humiliation they would have spared me!”
“Not to speak of the dresses, my dear Porthos.”
“Yes, thirty dresses.”
“Well, my dear Porthos, tell me M. Moliere’s plan.”
“Moliere? You call him so, do you? I shall make a point of recollecting his name.”
“Yes; or Poquelin, if you prefer that.”
“No; I like Moliere best. When I wish to recollect his name, I shall think of voliere [an aviary]; and as I have one at Pierrefonds-”
“Capital!” returned d’Artagnan; and M. Moliere’s plan?”
“‘Tis this: instead of pulling me to pieces, as all these rascals do, making me bend in my back, and double my joints,- all of them low and dishonorable practices-” D’Artagnan made a sign of approbation with his head. “‘Monsieur,’ he said to me,” continued Porthos, “‘a gentleman ought to measure himself. Do me the pleasure to draw near this glass’; and I drew near the glass. I must own I did not exactly understand what this good M. Voliere wanted with me-”
“Moliere.”
“Ah, yes, Moliere, Moliere. And as the fear of being measured still possessed me, ‘Take care,’ said I to him, ‘what you are going to do with me; I am very ticklish, I warn you!’ But he, with his soft voice (for he is a courteous fellow, we must admit, my friend),- he, with his soft voice, said: ‘Monsieur, that your dress may fit you well, it must be made according to your figure. Your figure is exactly reflected in this mirror. We shall measure this reflection.'”
“In fact,” said d’Artagnan, “you saw yourself in the glass; but where did they find one in which you could see your whole figure?”
“My good friend, it is the very glass in which the King sees himself.”
“Yes; but the King is a foot and a half shorter than you are.”
“Ah! well, I know not how that may be,- it would no doubt be a way of flattering the King,- but the looking-glass was too large for me. ‘Tis true that its height was made up of three Venetian plates of glass, placed one above another, and its breadth of the three similar pieces in juxtaposition.”
“Oh, Porthos, what excellent words you have at your command! Where in the world did you make the collection?”
“At Belle-Isle. Aramis explained them to the architect.”
“Ah, very good! Let us return to the glass, my friend.”
“Then this good M. Voliere-”
“Moliere.”
“Yes: Moliere,- you are right. You will see now, my dear friend, that I shall recollect his name too well. This excellent M. Moliere set to work tracing out lines on the mirror with a piece of Spanish chalk, following throughout the shape of my arms and my shoulders, all the while expounding this maxim, which I thought admirable,- ‘It is necessary that a dress should not incommode its wearer.'”
“In reality,” said d’Artagnan, “that is an excellent maxim, which is, unfortunately, seldom carried out in practice.”
“That is why I found it all the more astonishing when he expatiated upon it.”
“Ah! he expatiated?”
“Parbleu!”
“Let me hear his theory.
“‘Seeing that,’ he continued, ‘one may in awkward circumstances or in a troublesome position have one’s doublet on one’s shoulder, and not desire to take it off-‘”