“Eh, eh!” said Porthos; “in that case, my dear Monsieur Planchet, your retirement is not far distant.”
“How so?”
“Why, you seem to be in the way of making your fortune very soon.”
“Well, we are getting on pretty well, I must admit,” replied Planchet.
“Come, tell me what is the extent of your ambition, and what is the amount you intend to retire upon?”
“There is one circumstance, monsieur,” said Planchet, without answering the question, “which occasions me a good deal of anxiety.”
“What is it?” inquired Porthos, looking all round him as if in search of the circumstance that annoyed Planchet, and desirous of freeing him from it.
“Why, formerly,” said the grocer, “you used to call me Planchet quite short, and you would have spoken to me then in a much more familiar manner than you do now.”
“Certainly, certainly, I should have said so formerly,” replied the good-natured Porthos, with an embarrassment full of delicacy; “but formerly—”
“Formerly I was M. d’Artagnan’s lackey; is not that what you mean?”