e wisest man I know, and stand in no need of advice from any
one. Great fools must they be who think they have anything to teach you.
But are we not at the Rue Saint Honore?"

"Yes, dear Athos."

"Look yonder, on the left, that small, long white house is the hotel
where I lodge. You may observe that it has but two stories; I occupy
the first; the other is let to an officer whose duties oblige him to be
absent eight or nine months in the year,--so I am in that house as in my
own home, without the expense."

"Oh! how well you manage, Athos! What order and what liberality! They
are what I wish to unite! But, of what use trying! that comes from
birth, and cannot be acquired."

"You are a flatterer! Well! adieu, dear friend. _A propos_, remember me
to Master Planchet; he always was a bright fellow."

"And a man of heart, too, Athos. Adieu."

And the separated. During all this conversation, D'Artagnan had not for
a moment lost sight of a certain pack-horse, in whose panniers, under
some hay, were spread the _sacoches_ (messenger's bags) with the
portmanteau. Nine o'clock was striking at Saint-Merri. Planchet's helps
were shutting up his shop. D'Artagnan stopped the postilion who rode the
pack-horse, at the corner of the Rue des Lombards, under a pent-house,
and calling one of Planchet's boys, he desired him not only to take care
of the two horses, but to watch the postilion; after which he entered
the shop of the grocer, who had just finished supper, and who, in his
little private room, was, with a degree of anxiety, consulting the
calendar, on which, every evening, he scratched out the day that was
past. At the moment when Planchet, according to his daily custom, with
the back of his pen, erased another day, D'Artagnan kicked the door
with his foot, and the blow made his steel spur jingle. "Oh! good
Lord!" cried Planchet. The worthy grocer could say no more; he had just
perceived his partner. D'Artagnan entered with a bent back and a dull
eye: the Gascon had an idea with regard to Planchet.

"Good God!" thought the grocer, looking earnestly at the traveler, "he
looks sad!" The musketeer sat down.

"My dear Monsieur d'Artagnan!" said Planchet, with a horrible
palpitation of the heart. "Here you are! and your health?"

"Tolerably good, Planchet, tolerably good!" said D'Artagnan, with a
profound sigh.

"You have not been wounded, I hope?"

"Phew!"

"Ah, I see," continued Planchet, more and more alarmed, "the expe