it more
convenient than climbing."

"You are as pastoral as Tyrcis, my dear Porthos."

"Yes, I like the small eggs; I like them very much better than larger
ones. You have no idea how delicate an _omelette_ is, if made of four
or five hundred eggs of linnets, chaffinches, starlings, blackbirds, and
thrushes."

"But five hundred eggs is perfectly monstrous!"

"A salad-bowl will hold them easily enough," said Porthos.

D'Artagnan looked at Porthos admiringly for full five minutes, as if
he had seen him for the first time, while Porthos spread his chest
out joyously and proudly. They remained in this state several minutes,
Porthos smiling, and D'Artagnan looking at him. D'Artagnan was evidently
trying to give the conversation a new turn. "Do you amuse yourself much
here, Porthos?" he asked at last, very likely after he had found out
what he was searching for.

"Not always."

"I can imagine that; but when you get thoroughly bored, by and by, what
do you intend to do?"

"Oh! I shall not be here for any length of time. Aramis is waiting until
the last bump on my head disappears, in order to present me to the king,
who I am told cannot endure the sight of a bump."

"Aramis is still in Paris, then?"

"No."

"Whereabouts is he, then?"

"At Fontainebleau."

"Alone?"

"With M. Fouquet."

"Very good. But do you happen to know one thing?"

"No, tell it me, and then I shall know."

"Well, then, I think Aramis is forgetting you."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes; for at Fontainebleau yonder, you must know, they are laughing,
dancing, banqueting, and drawing the corks of M. de Mazarin's wine in
fine style. Are you aware that they have a ballet every evening there?"

"The deuce they have!"

"I assure you that your dear Aramis is forgetting you."

"Well, that is not at all unlikely, and I have myself thought so
sometimes."

"Unless he is playing you a trick, the sly fellow!"

"Oh!"

"You know that Aramis is as sly as a fox."

"Yes, but to play _me_ a trick--"

"Listen: in the first place, he puts you under a sort of sequestration."

"He sequestrates me! Do you mean to say I am sequestrated?"

"I think so."

"I wish you would have the goodness to prove that to me."

"Nothing easier. Do you ever go out?"

"Never."

"Do you ever ride on horseback?"

"Never."

"Are your friends allowed to come and see you?"

"Never."

"Very well, then; never to go out, never to ride on horseback, never to