age! I should like to
strangle somebody or destroy something!"

"Neither strangle anybody nor destroy anything, Porthos; I will manage
it all; put on one of your thirty-six suits and come with me to a
tailor."

"Pooh! my agent has seen them all this morning."

"Even M. Percerin?"

"Who is M. Percerin?"

"Only the king's tailor!"

"Oh, ah, yes," said Porthos, who wished to appear to know the king's
tailor, but now heard his name mentioned for the first time;--"to M.
Percerin's, by Jove! I thought he would be too much engaged."

"Doubtless he will be; but be at ease, Porthos; he will do for me what
he won't do for another. Only you must allow yourself to be measured!"

"Ah!" said Porthos, with a sigh, "'tis vexatious, but what would you
have me do?"

"Do? as others do; as the king does."

"What! do they measure the king too? does _he_ put up with it?"

"The king is a beau, my good friend, and so are you, too, whatever you
may say about it."

Porthos smiled triumphantly. "Let us go to the king's tailor," he said;
"and since he measures the king, I think, by my faith, I may well allow
him to measure me!"

CHAPTER LXXVII.

WHO MESSIRE JOHN PERCERIN WAS.

The king's tailor, Messire Jean Percerin, occupied a rather large house
in the Rue St. Honore, near the Rue de l'Arbre Sec. He was a man of
great taste in elegant stuffs, embroideries, and velvet, being
hereditary tailor to the king. The preferment of his house reached as
far back as the time of Charles IX.; from whose reign dated, as we know,
fancies in _bravery_ difficult enough to gratify. The Percerin of that
period was a Huguenot, like Ambroise Pare, and had been spared by the
queen of Navarre, the beautiful Margot, as they used to write and say,
too, in those days; because, in sooth, he was the only one who could
make for her those wonderful riding-habits which she loved to wear,
seeing that they were marvelously well suited to hide certain anatomical
defects, which the queen of Navarre used very studiously to conceal.
Percerin being saved, made, out of gratitude, some beautiful black
bodices, very inexpensive indeed for Queen Catherine, who ended by being
pleased at the preservation of a Huguenot, on whom she had long looked
with aversion. But Percerin was a very prudent man; and having heard it
said that there was no more dangerous sign for a Protestant than to be
smiled upon by Catherine; and having observed that her smiles were more
fre