hen the door was closed behind
them; when the buzzing murmur of the antechamber, to which the summons
which had been made had doubtless furnished fresh food, had recommenced;
when M. de Treville had three or four times paced in silence, and with a
frowning brow, the whole length of his cabinet, passing each time before
Porthos and Aramis, who were as upright and silent as if on parade--he
stopped all at once full in front of them, and covering them from head
to foot with an angry look, "Do you know what the king said to me,"
cried he, "and that no longer ago than yesterday evening--do you know,
gentlemen?"

"No," replied the two Musketeers, after a moment's silence, "no, sir, we
do not."

"But I hope that you will do us the honor to tell us," added Aramis, in
his politest tone and with his most graceful bow.

"He told me that he should henceforth recruit his Musketeers from among
the Guards of Monsieur the Cardinal."

"The Guards of the cardinal! And why so?" asked Porthos, warmly.

"Because he plainly perceives that his piquette* stands in need of being
enlivened by a mixture of good wine."

*A watered liquor, made from the second pressing of the grape.

The two Musketeers reddened to the whites of their eyes. d'Artagnan did
not know where he was, and wished himself a hundred feet underground.

"Yes, yes," continued M. de Treville, growing warmer as he spoke,
"and his majesty was right; for, upon my honor, it is true that the
Musketeers make but a miserable figure at court. The cardinal related
yesterday while playing with the king, with an air of condolence
very displeasing to me, that the day before yesterday those DAMNED
MUSKETEERS, those DAREDEVILS--he dwelt upon those words with an ironical
tone still more displeasing to me--those BRAGGARTS, added he, glancing
at me with his tiger-cat's eye, had made a riot in the Rue Ferou in a
cabaret, and that a party of his Guards (I thought he was going to laugh
in my face) had been forced to arrest the rioters! MORBLEU! You must
know something about it. Arrest Musketeers! You were among them--you
were! Don't deny it; you were recognized, and the cardinal named you.
But it's all my fault; yes, it's all my fault, because it is myself who
selects my men. You, Aramis, why the devil did you ask me for a uniform
when you would have been so much better in a cassock? And you, Porthos,
do you only wear such a fine golden baldric to suspend a sword of straw
from it? And Athos