ve horses below,' I carry him off before he
can have spoken to any one."

"Will he allow himself to be carried off like that?"

"I should think so! I should like to see it fail. It would be the first
time, if it did. It is true, though, that the young men of the present
day--Bah! I would carry him off bodily, if that were all," and Porthos,
adding gesture to speech, lifted Raoul and the chair he was sitting on
off the ground, and carried them round the room.

"Very good," said Raoul, laughing. "All we have to do is to state the
grounds of the quarrel to M. de Saint-Aignan."

"Well, but that is done, it seems."

"No, my dear M. de Valon, the usage of the present day requires that the
cause of the quarrel should be explained."

"Very good. Tell me what it is, then."

"The fact is--"

"Deuce take it! see how troublesome this is. In former days, we never
had any occasion to say anything about the matter. People fought then
for the sake of fighting; and I, for one, know no better reason than
that."

"You are quite right, M. de Valon."

"However, tell me what the cause is."

"It is too long a story to tell; only as one must particularize to some
extent, and as, on the other hand, the affair is full of difficulties,
and requires the most absolute secrecy, you will have the kindness
merely to tell M. de Saint-Aignan that he has, in the first place,
insulted me by changing his lodgings."

"By changing his lodgings? Good," said Porthos, who began to count on
his fingers--"next?"

"Then in getting a trap-door made in his new apartments."

"I understand," said Porthos; "a trap-door; upon my word this is very
serious; you ought to be furious at that. What the deuce does the fellow
mean by getting trap-doors made without first consulting you?
Trap-doors! mordioux! I haven't got any, except in my dungeons at
Bracieux."

"And you will add," said Raoul, "that my last motive for considering
myself insulted is, the portrait that M. de Saint-Aignan well knows."

"Is it possible? A portrait, too! A change of residence, a trap-door,
and a portrait! Why, my dear friend, with but one of those causes of
complaint there is enough, and more than enough, for all the gentlemen
in France and Spain to cut each other's throats, and that is saying but
very little."

"Well, my dear friend, you are furnished with all you need, I suppose?"

"I shall take a second horse with me. Select your own rendezvous, and
while you are waiting