ng at dice had started a quarrel, and were threatening each other
furiously. The host, hostess, and two lads were watching with anxiety
the circle of these angry gamblers, from the midst of which war seemed
ready to break forth, bristling with knives and hatchets. The play,
nevertheless, was continued. A stone bench was occupied by two men, who
appeared thence to watch the door; four tables, placed at the back of
the common chamber, were occupied by eight other individuals. Neither
the men at the door, nor those at the tables took any part in the
play or the quarrel. D'Artagnan recognized his ten men in these cold,
indifferent spectators. The quarrel went on increasing. Every passion
has, like the sea, its tide which ascends and descends. Reaching the
climax of passion, one sailor overturned the table and the money which
was upon it. The table fell, and the money rolled about. In an instant
all belonging to the hostelry threw themselves upon the stakes, and
many a piece of silver was picked up by people who stole away whilst the
sailors were scuffling with each other.

The two men on the bench and the eight at the tables, although they
seemed perfect strangers to each other, these ten men alone, we say,
appeared to have agreed to remain impassible amidst the cries of fury
and the chinking of money. Two only contented themselves with pushing
with their feet combatants who came under their table. Two others,
rather than take part in this disturbance, buried their hands in their
pockets; and another two jumped upon the table they occupied, as people
do to avoid being submerged by overflowing water.

"Come, come," said D'Artagnan to himself, not having lost one of the
details we have related, "this is a very fair gathering--circumspect,
calm, accustomed to disturbance, acquainted with blows! _Peste!_ I have
been lucky."

All at once his attention was called to a particular part of the room.
The two men who had pushed the strugglers with their feet, were assailed
with abuse by the sailors, who had become reconciled. One of them,
half drunk with passion, and quite drunk with beer, came, in a menacing
manner, to demand of the shorter of these two sages by what right he had
touched with his foot creatures of the good God, who were not dogs.
And whilst putting this question, in order to make it more direct, he
applied his great fist to the nose of D'Artagnan's recruit.

This man became pale, without its being to be discerned