(messenger’s bags) with the portmanteau. Nine o’clock was
striking at Saint-Merri. Planchet’s helps were shutting up
his shop. D’Artagnan stopped the postilion who rode the
pack-horse, at the corner of the Rue des Lombards, under a
penthouse, and calling one of Planchet’s boys, he desired
him not only to take care of the two horses, but to watch
the postilion; after which he entered the shop of the
grocer, who had just finished supper, and who, in his little
private room, was, with a degree of anxiety, consulting the
calendar, on which, every evening, he scratched out the day
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that was past. At the moment when Planchet, according to his
daily custom, with the back of his pen, erased another day,
D’Artagnan kicked the door with his foot, and the blow made
his steel spur jingle. “Oh! good Lord!” cried Planchet. The
worthy grocer could say no more; he had just perceived his
partner. D’Artagnan entered with a bent back and a dull eye:
the Gascon had an idea with regard to Planchet.
“Good God!” thought the grocer, looking earnestly at the
traveler, “he looks sad!” The musketeer sat down.
“My dear Monsieur d’Artagnan!” said Planchet, with a
horrible palpitation of the heart. “Here you are! and your
health?”
“Tolerably good, Planchet, tolerably good!” said D’Artagnan,
with a profound sigh.
“You have not been wounded, I hope?”
“Phew!”
“Ah, I see,” continued Planchet, more and more alarmed, “the
expedition has been a trying one?”
“Yes,” said D’Artagnan. A shudder ran down Planchet’s back.
“I should like to have something to drink,” said the
musketeer, raising his head piteously.
Planchet ran to the cupboard, and poured out to D’Artagnan
some wine in a large glass. D’Artagnan examined the bottle.
“What wine is that?” asked he.
“Alas! that which you prefer, monsieur,” said Planchet;
“that good old Anjou wine, which was one day nearly costing
us all so dear.”
“Ah!” replied D’Artagnan, with a melancholy smile, “Ah! my
poor Planchet, ought I still to drink good wine?”
“Come! my dear master,” said Planchet, making a superhuman
effort, whilst all his contracted muscles, his pallor, and
his trembling, betrayed the most acute anguish. “Come! I
have been a soldier and consequently have some courage; do
not make me linger, dear Monsieur d’Artagnan; our money is
lost, is it not?”
Before he answered, D’Artagnan took his time, and that
appeared an age to the poor grocer. Nevertheless he did
nothing but turn about on his chair.
“And if that were the case,” said he, slowly, moving his
head up and down, “if that were the case, what would you
say, my dear friend?”
Planchet, from being pale, turned yellow. It might have been
thought he was going to swallow his tongue, so full became
his throat, so red were his eyes!
“Twenty thousand livres!” murmured he. “Twenty thousand
livres, and yet —- ”
D’Artagnan, with his neck elongated, his legs stretched out,
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and his hands hanging listlessly, looked like a statue of
discouragement. Planchet drew up a sigh from the deepest
cavities of his breast.
“Well,” said he, “I see how it is. Let us be men! It is all
over, is it not? The principal thing is, monsieur, that your
life is safe.”
“Doubtless! doubtless! — life is something — but I am
ruined!”
“Cordieu! monsieur!” said Planchet, “if it is so, we must
not despair for that; you shall become a grocer with me; I
shall take you for my partner, we will share the profits,
and if there should be no more profits, well, why then we
shall share the almonds, raisins and prunes, and we will
nibble together the last quarter of Dutch cheese.”
D’Artagnan could hold out no longer. “Mordioux!” cried he,
with great emotion, “thou art a brave fellow on my honor,
Planchet. You have not been playing a part, have you? You
have not seen the pack-horse with the bags under the shed
yonder?”
“What horse? What bags?” said Planchet, whose trembling
heart began to suggest that D’Artagnan was mad.
“Why, the English bags, Mordioux!” said D’Artagnan, all
radiant, quite transfigured.
“Ah! good God!” articulated Planchet, drawing back before