leave home occasionally?"

"Yes."

"In any particular way?"

"Periodically."

"That's the very thing. You have noticed it, then?"

"My dear Planchet, you must understand that when people see each other
every day, and one of the two absents himself, the other misses him. Do
you not feel the want of my society when I am in the country?"

"Prodigiously; that is to say, I feel like a body without a soul."

"That being understood then, proceed."

"What are the periods when I absent myself?"

"On the fifteenth and thirtieth of every month."

"And I remain away?"

"Sometimes two, sometimes three, and sometimes four days at a time."

"Have you ever given it a thought, why I was absent?"

"To look after your debts, I suppose."

"And when I returned, how did you think I looked, as far as my face was
concerned?"

"Exceedingly self-satisfied."

"You admit, you say, that I always look satisfied. And what have you
attributed my satisfaction to?"

"That your business was going on very well; that your purchases of rice,
prunes, raw sugar, dried apples, pears, and treacle were advantageous.
You were always very picturesque in your notions and ideas, Planchet;
and I was not in the slightest degree surprised to find you had selected
grocery as an occupation, which is of all trades the most varied, and
the very pleasantest, as far as the character is concerned; inasmuch as
one handles so many natural and perfumed productions."

"Perfectly true, monsieur; but you are very greatly mistaken."

"In what way?"

"In thinking that I heave here every fortnight, to collect my money or
to make purchases. Ho, ho! how could you possibly have thought such
a thing? Ho, ho, ho!" And Planchet began to laugh in a manner that
inspired D'Artagnan with very serious misgivings as to his sanity.

"I confess," said the musketeer, "that I do not precisely catch your
meaning."

"Very true, monsieur."

"What do you mean by 'very true'?"

"It must be true, since you say it; but pray, be assured that it in no
way lessens my opinion of you."

"Ah, that is lucky."

"No; you are a man of genius; and whenever the question happens to be
of war, tactics, surprises, or good honest blows to be dealt with, why,
kings are marionettes, compared to you. But for the consolations of the
mind, the proper care of the body, the agreeable things of like, if one
may say so--ah! monsieur, don't talk to me about men of genius; they are
nothing short of