“It concerns me much,” said D’Artagnan, “since you cannot marry madame without my consent and since——”
“And since?” asked the Swiss.
“And since—I do not give it,” said the musketeer.
The Swiss became as purple as a peony. He wore his elegant uniform, D’Artagnan was wrapped in a sort of gray cloak; the Swiss was six feet high, D’Artagnan was hardly more than five; the Swiss considered himself on his own ground and regarded D’Artagnan as an intruder.
“Will you go away from here?” demanded the Swiss, stamping violently, like a man who begins to be seriously angry.
“I? By no means!” said D’Artagnan.
“Some one must go for help,” said a lad, who could not comprehend that this little man should make a stand against that other man, who was so large.
D’Artagnan, with a sudden accession of wrath, seized the lad by the ear and led him apart, with the injunction:
“Stay you where you are and don’t you stir, or I will pull this ear off. As for you, illustrious descendant of William Tell, you will straightway get together your clothes which are in my room and which annoy me, and go out quickly to another lodging.”
The Swiss began to laugh boisterously. “I go out?” he said. “And why?”