“What?” said Mousqueton.
“I can pass.”
“That is true,” said Mousqueton, glancing at his friend’s long and thin body, “you will pass easily.”
“And he knows the full casks,” said Blaisois, “for he has already been in the hold with Monsieur le Chevalier d’Artagnan. Let Monsieur Grimaud go in, Monsieur Mouston.”
“I could go in as well as Grimaud,” said Mousqueton, a little piqued.
“Yes, but that would take too much time and I am thirsty. I am getting more and more seasick.”
“Go in, then, Grimaud,” said Mousqueton, handing him the beer pot and gimlet.
“Rinse the glasses,” said Grimaud. Then with a friendly gesture toward Mousqueton, that he might forgive him for finishing an enterprise so brilliantly begun by another, he glided like a serpent through the opening and disappeared.
Blaisois was in a state of great excitement; he was in ecstasies. Of all the exploits performed since their arrival in England by the extraordinary men with whom he had the honor to be associated, this seemed without question to be the most wonderful.
“You are about to see,” said Mousqueton, looking at Blaisois with an expression of superiority which the latter did not even think of questioning, “you are about to see, Blaisois, how we old soldiers drink when we are thirsty.”