"I'll wager it is some piece of policy or other."
"And of the most subtle character," returned D'Artagnan.
Porthos bent his head at this word policy; then, after a moment's reflection, he added: "I confess, D'Artagnan, that I am no politician."
"I know that well."
"Oh! no one knows what you told me yourself, you the bravest of the brave."
"What did I tell you, Porthos?"
"That every man has his day. You told me so, and I have experienced it myself. There are certain days when one feels less pleasure than others in exposing one's self to a bullet or a sword-thrust."
"Exactly my own idea."
"And mine, too, although I can hardly believe in blows or thrusts which kill outright."
"The deuce! and yet you have killed a few in your time."
"Yes; but I have never been killed."
"Your reason is a very good one."
"Therefore I do not believe I shall ever die from a thrust of a sword or a gunshot."
"In that case, then, you are afraid of nothing. Ah! water, perhaps?"
"Oh, I swim like an otter."
"Of a quartan fever, then?"
"I never had one yet, and I don't believe I ever shall; but there is one thing I will admit;" and Porthos dropped his voice.
"What is that?" asked D'Artagnan, adopting the same tone of voice as Porthos.
"I must confess," repeated Porthos, "that I am horribly afraid of political matters."
"Ah! bah!" exclaimed D'Artagnan.
"Upon my word, it's true," said Porthos, in a stentorian voice. "I have seen his eminence Monsieur le Cardinal de Richelieu, and his eminence Monsieur le Cardinal de Mazarin; the one was a red politician, the other a black politician; I have never felt very much more satisfaction with the one than with the other; the first struck off the heads of M. de Marillac, M. de Thou, M. de Cinq-Mars, M. Chalais, M. de Boutteville, and M. de Montmorency; the second got a whole crowd of Frondeurs cut in pieces, and we belonged to them."
"On the contrary, we did not belong to them," said D'Artagnan.
"Oh! indeed, yes; for, if I unsheathed my sword for the cardinal, I struck for the king."
"Dear Porthos!"
"Well, I have done. My dread of politics is such, that if there is any question of politics in the matter, I should far sooner prefer to return to Pierrefonds."
"You would be quite right if that were the case. But with me, dear Porthos, no politics at all, that is quite clear. You have labored hard in fortifying Belle-Isle; the king wished to know the name of the clever engineer under whose directions the works were carried on; you are modest, as all men of true genius are; perhaps Aramis wishes to put you under a bushel. But I happen to seize hold of you; I make it known who you are; I produce you; the king rewards you; and that is the only policy I have to do with."
"And the only one I will have to do with either," said Porthos, holding out his hand to D'Artagnan.
But D'Artagnan knew Porthos' grasp; he knew that once imprisoned within the baron's five fingers, no hand ever left it without being half-crushed. He therefore held out, not his hand, but his fist, and Porthos did not even perceive the difference. The servants talked a little with each other in an undertone, and whispered a few words, which D'Artagnan understood, but which he took very good care not to let Porthos understand. "Our friend," said he to himself, "was really and truly Aramis' prisoner. Let us now see what the result will be of the liberation of the captive."
CHAPTER XI.
THE RAT AND THE CHEESE.
D'Artagnan and Porthos returned on foot, as D'Artagnan had arrived. When D'Artagnan, as he entered the shop of the Pilon d'Or, had announced to Planchet that M. de Valon would be one of the privileged travelers, and when the plume in Porthos' hat had made the wooden candles suspended over the front jingle together, something almost like a melancholy presentiment troubled the delight which Planchet had promised himself for the next day. But the grocer's heart was of sterling metal, a precious relic of the good old time, which always remains what it has always been for those who are getting old the time of their youth, and for those who are young the old age of their ancestors. Planchet, notwithstanding the sort of internal shiver, which he checked immediately he experienced it, received Porthos, therefore, with a respect mingled with the most tender cordiality. Porthos, who was a little cold and stiff in his manners at first, on account of the social difference which existed at that period between a baron and a grocer, soon began to get a little softened when he perceived so much good-feeling and so many kind attentions in Planchet. He was particularly touched by the liberty which was permitted him to plunge his large hands into the boxes of dried fruits and preserves, into the sacks of nuts and almonds, and into the drawers full of sweetmeats. So that, notwithstanding Planchet's pressing invitations to go upstairs to the entresol, he chose as his favorite seat, during the evening which he had to spend at Planchet's house, the shop itself, where his fingers could always find whatever his nose had first detected for him. The delicious figs from Provence, filberts from the forest, Tours plums, were subjects of his interrupted attention for five consecutive hours. His teeth, like millstones, cracked heaps of nuts, the shells of which were scattered all over the floor, where they were trampled by every one who went in and out of the shop; Porthos pulled from the stalk with his lips, at one mouthful, bunches of the rich Muscatel raisins with their beautiful bloom and a half-pound of which passed at one gulp from his mouth to his stomach. In one of the corners of the shop, Planchet's assistants, crouching down in a fright, 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 Hugues Capet, Philip Augustus and Francis the First, had already begun to disappear. They could not help thinking he might possibly be the ogre of the fairytale, 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 continues," grumbled the foreman, who had Planchet's word that he should be his successor. And, in 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, very affably.
"I should like to pass you, monsieur, if it is not troubling you too much."
"Very
