ot deny
themselves this wine. Know that Monsieur de Bracieux is rich enough to
drink a tun of port wine, even if obliged to pay a pistole for every
drop." His manner became more and more lofty every instant; then he
arose and after finishing off the beer at one draught he advanced
majestically to the door of the compartment where the wine was. "Ah!
locked!" he exclaimed; "these devils of English, how suspicious they
are!"

"Locked!" said Blaisois; "ah! the deuce it is; unlucky, for my stomach
is getting more and more upset."

"Locked!" repeated Mousqueton.

"But," Blaisois ventured to say, "I have heard you relate, Monsieur
Mousqueton, that once on a time, at Chantilly, you fed your master and
yourself by taking partridges in a snare, carp with a line, and bottles
with a slipnoose."

"Perfectly true; but there was an airhole in the cellar and the wine was
in bottles. I cannot throw the loop through this partition nor move
with a pack-thread a cask of wine which may perhaps weigh two hundred
pounds."

"No, but you can take out two or three boards of the partition,"
answered Blaisois, "and make a hole in the cask with a gimlet."

Mousqueton opened his great round eyes to the utmost, astonished to find
in Blaisois qualities for which he did not give him credit.

"'Tis true," he said; "but where can I get a chisel to take the planks
out, a gimlet to pierce the cask?"

"Trousers," said Grimaud, still squaring his accounts.

"Ah, yes!" said Mousqueton.

Grimaud, in fact, was not only the accountant, but the armorer of
the party; and as he was a man full of forethought, these trousers,
carefully rolled up in his valise, contained every sort of tool for
immediate use.

Mousqueton, therefore, was soon provided with tools and he began his
task. In a few minutes he had extracted three boards. He tried to pass
his body through the aperture, but not being like the frog in the fable,
who thought he was larger than he really was, he found he must take out
three or four more before he could get through.

He sighed and set to work again.

Grimaud had now finished his accounts. He arose and stood near
Mousqueton.

"I," he said.

"What?" said Mousqueton.

"I can pass."

"That is true," said Mousqueton, glancing at his friend's long and thin
body, "you will pass easily."

"And he knows the full casks," said Blaisois, "for he has already been
in the hold with Monsieur le Chevalier d'Artagnan. Let Monsieur Grimaud