op, Planchet's assistants, huddled together, looked at each
other without venturing to open their lips. They did not know who
Porthos was, for they had never seen him before. The race of those
Titans who had worn the cuirasses of Hugh Capet, Philip Augustus,
and Francis I. had already begun to disappear. They could hardly help
thinking he might be the ogre of the fairy tale, who was going to turn
the whole contents of Planchet's shop into his insatiable stomach, and
that, too, without in the slightest degree displacing the barrels and
chests that were in it. Cracking, munching, chewing, nibbling, sucking,
and swallowing, Porthos occasionally said to the grocer:

"You do a very good business here, friend Planchet."

"He will very soon have none at all to do, if this sort of thing
continues," grumbled the foreman, who had Planchet's word that he should
be his successor. In the midst of his despair, he approached Porthos,
who blocked up the whole of the passage leading from the back shop to
the shop itself. He hoped that Porthos would rise and that this movement
would distract his devouring ideas.

"What do you want, my man?" asked Porthos, affably.

"I should like to pass you, monsieur, if it is not troubling you too
much."

"Very well," said Porthos, "it does not trouble me in the least."

At the same moment he took hold of the young fellow by the waistband,
lifted him off the ground, and placed him very gently on the other
side, smiling all the while with the same affable expression. As soon as
Porthos had placed him on the ground, the lad's legs so shook under him
that he fell back upon some sacks of corks. But noticing the giant's
gentleness of manner, he ventured again, and said:

"Ah, monsieur! pray be careful."

"What about?" inquired Porthos.

"You are positively putting a fiery furnace into your body."

"How is that, my good fellow?"

"All those things are very heating to the system!"

"Which?"

"Raisins, nuts, and almonds."

"Yes; but if raisins, nuts, and almonds are heating--"

"There is no doubt at all of it, monsieur."

"Honey is very cooling," said Porthos, stretching out his hand toward
a small barrel of honey which was open, and he plunged the scoop with
which the wants of the customers were supplied into it, and swallowed a
good half-pound at one gulp.

"I must trouble you for some water now, my man," said Porthos.

"In a pail, monsieur?" asked the lad, simply.

"No, in a water-bo