u on this occasion, monsieur."

"Yes?"

"Seeing you constantly surrounded by Musketeers of a very superb
appearance, and knowing that these Musketeers belong to Monsieur de
Treville, and were consequently enemies of the cardinal, I thought that
you and your friends, while rendering justice to your poor queen, would
be pleased to play his Eminence an ill turn."

"Without doubt."

"And then I have thought that considering three months' lodging, about
which I have said nothing--"

"Yes, yes; you have already given me that reason, and I find it
excellent."

"Reckoning still further, that as long as you do me the honor to remain
in my house I shall never speak to you about rent--"

"Very kind!"

"And adding to this, if there be need of it, meaning to offer you
fifty pistoles, if, against all probability, you should be short at the
present moment."

"Admirable! You are rich then, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux?"

"I am comfortably off, monsieur, that's all; I have scraped together
some such thing as an income of two or three thousand crown in the
haberdashery business, but more particularly in venturing some funds
in the last voyage of the celebrated navigator Jean Moquet; so that you
understand, monsieur--But--" cried the citizen.

"What!" demanded d'Artagnan.

"Whom do I see yonder?"

"Where?"

"In the street, facing your window, in the embrasure of that door--a man
wrapped in a cloak."

"It is he!" cried d'Artagnan and the citizen at the same time, each
having recognized his man.

"Ah, this time," cried d'Artagnan, springing to his sword, "this time he
will not escape me!"

Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he rushed out of the apartment. On
the staircase he met Athos and Porthos, who were coming to see him. They
separated, and d'Artagnan rushed between them like a dart.

"Pah! Where are you going?" cried the two Musketeers in a breath.

"The man of Meung!" replied d'Artagnan, and disappeared.

D'Artagnan had more than once related to his friends his adventure with
the stranger, as well as the apparition of the beautiful foreigner, to
whom this man had confided some important missive.

The opinion of Athos was that d'Artagnan had lost his letter in the
skirmish. A gentleman, in his opinion--and according to d'Artagnan's
portrait of him, the stranger must be a gentleman--would be incapable of
the baseness of stealing a letter.

Porthos saw nothing in all this but a love meeting, given by a lady