h, I warn you.' But he, with his soft voice (for
he is a courteous fellow, we must admit, my friend), he with his soft
voice, 'Monsieur,' said he, 'that your dress may fit you well, it must
be made according to your figure. Your figure is exactly reflected in
this mirror. We shall take the measure of this reflection.'"

"In fact," said D'Artagnan, "you saw yourself in the glass; but where
did they find one in which you could see your whole figure?"

"My good friend, it is the very glass in which the king is used to look
to see himself."

"Yes; but the king is a foot and a half shorter than you are."

"Ah! well, I know not how that may be; it is, no doubt, a cunning way
of flattering the king; but the looking-glass was too large for me.
'Tis true that its height was made up of three Venetian plates of
glass, placed one above another, and its breadth of three similar
parallelograms in juxtaposition."

"Oh, Porthos! what excellent words you have command of. Where in the
word did you acquire such a voluminous vocabulary?"

"At Belle-Isle. Aramis and I had to use such words in our strategic
studies and castramentative experiments."

D'Artagnan recoiled, as though the sesquipedalian syllables had knocked
the breath out of his body.

"Ah! very good. Let us return to the looking-glass, my friend."

"Then, this good M. Voliere--"

"Moliere."

"Yes--Moliere--you are right. You will see now, my dear friend, that I
shall recollect his name quite well. This excellent M. Moliere set to
work tracing out lines on the mirror, with a piece of Spanish chalk,
following in all the make of my arms and my shoulders, all the while
expounding this maxim, which I thought admirable: 'It is advisable that
a dress should not incommode its wearer.'"

"In reality," said D'Artagnan, "that is an excellent maxim, which is,
unfortunately, seldom carried out in practice."

"That is why I found it all the more astonishing, when he expatiated
upon it."

"Ah! he expatiated?"

"_Parbleu!_"

"Let me hear his theory."

"'Seeing that,' he continued, 'one may, in awkward circumstances, or in
a troublesome position, have one's doublet on one's shoulder, and not
desire to take one's doublet off--'"

"True," said D'Artagnan.

"'And so,' continued M. Voliere--"

"Moliere."

"Moliere, yes. 'And so,' went on M. Moliere, 'you want to draw your
sword, monsieur, and you have your doublet on your back. What do you
do?'

"'I take it off,' I an