Twenty Years Later by Dumas, Alexandre. Part two

“Four hundred, at a louis each, make four hundred louis.”

“Four hundred?” said Porthos.

“Yes, there are two hundred of them, and each of them will

need two, which will make four hundred.”

“But four hundred what?”

“Listen!” cried D’Artagnan.

But as there were all kinds of people about, who were in a

state of stupefaction at the unexpected arrival of the

court, he whispered in his friend’s ear.

“I understand,” answered Porthos, “I understand you

perfectly, on my honor; two hundred louis, each of us, would

be making a pretty thing of it; but what will people say?”

“Let them say what they will; besides, how will they know

that we are doing it?”

“But who will distribute these things?” asked Porthos.

“Isn’t Mousqueton there?”

“But he wears my livery; my livery will be known,” replied

Porthos.

“He can turn his coat inside out.”

“You are always in the right, my dear friend,” cried

Porthos; “but where the devil do you discover all the

notions you put into practice?”

D’Artagnan smiled. The two friends turned down the first

street they came to. Porthos knocked at the door of a house

to the right, whilst D’Artagnan knocked at the door of a

house to the left.

“Some straw,” they said.

“Sir, we don’t keep any,” was the reply of the people who

opened the doors; “but please ask at the hay dealer’s.”

“Where is the hay dealer’s?”

“At the last large door in the street.”

“Are there any other people in Saint Germain who sell

straw?”

“Yes; there’s the landlord of the Lamb, and Gros-Louis the

farmer; they both live in the Rue des Ursulines.”

“Very well.”

D’Artagnan went instantly to the hay dealer and bargained

with him for a hundred and fifty trusses of straw, which he

obtained, at the rate of three pistoles each. He went

afterward to the innkeeper and bought from him two hundred

Page 372

Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After

trusses at the same price. Finally, Farmer Louis sold them

eighty trusses, making in all four hundred and thirty.

There was no more to be had in Saint Germain. This foraging

did not occupy more than half an hour. Mousqueton, duly

instructed, was put at the head of this sudden and new

business. He was cautioned not to let a bit of straw out of

his hands under a louis the truss, and they intrusted to him

straw to the amount of four hundred and thirty louis.

D’Artagnan, taking with him three trusses of straw, returned

to the chateau, where everybody, freezing with cold and more

than half asleep, envied the king, the queen, and the Duke

of Orleans, on their camp beds. The lieutenant’s entrance

produced a burst of laughter in the great drawing-room; but

he did not appear to notice that he was the object of

general attention, but began to arrange, with so much

cleverness, nicety and gayety, his straw bed, that the

mouths of all these poor creatures, who could not go to

sleep, began to water.

“Straw!” they all cried out, “straw! where is there any to

be found?”

“I can show you,” answered the Gascon.

And he conducted them to Mousqueton, who freely distributed

the trusses at the rate of a louis apiece. It was thought

rather dear, but people wanted to sleep, and who would not

give even two or three louis for a few hours of sound sleep?

D’Artagnan gave up his bed to any one who wanted it, making

it over about a dozen times; and since he was supposed to

have paid, like the others, a louis for his truss of straw,

he pocketed in that way thirty louis in less than half an

hour. At five o’clock in the morning the straw was worth

eighty francs a truss and there was no more to be had.

D’Artagnan had taken the precaution to set apart four

trusses for his own use. He put in his pocket the key of the

room where he had hidden them, and accompanied by Porthos

returned to settle with Mousqueton, who, naively, and like

the worthy steward that he was, handed them four hundred and

thirty louis and kept one hundred for himself.

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