“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
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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.