“If you are in haste, monsieur,” said D’Artagnan, with the same simplicity with which a moment before he had proposed to him to put off the duel for three days, “and if it be your will to dispatch me at once, do not inconvenience yourself, I pray you.”
“There is another word which pleases me,” cried Athos, with a gracious nod to D’Artagnan. “That did not come from a man without a heart. Monsieur, I love men of your kidney; and I foresee plainly that if we don’t kill each other, I shall hereafter have much pleasure in your conversation. We will wait for these gentlemen, so please you; I have plenty of time, and it will be more correct. Ah, here is one of them, I believe.”
In fact, at the end of the Rue Vaugirard the gigantic Porthos appeared.
“What!” cried D’Artagnan, “is your first witness Monsieur Porthos?”
“Yes, that disturbs you?”
“By no means.”
“And here is the second.”
D’Artagnan turned in the direction pointed to by Athos, and perceived Aramis.
“What!” cried he, in an accent of greater astonishment than before, “your second witness is Monsieur Aramis?”
“Doubtless! Are you not aware that we are never seen one without the others, and that we are called among the Musketeers and the Guards, at court and in the city, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, or the Three Inseparables? And yet, as you come from Dax or Pau—”