“Because, having neither arms nor password, we shouldn’t take fifty steps in the court without knocking against a sentinel.”
“Very well,” said Porthos, “we will kill the sentinel and we shall have his arms.”
“Yes, but before we can kill him—and he will be hard to kill, that Swiss—he will shriek out and the whole picket will come, and we shall be taken like foxes, we, who are lions, and thrown into some dungeon, where we shall not even have the consolation of seeing this frightful gray sky of Rueil, which no more resembles the sky of Tarbes than the moon is like the sun. Lack-a-day! if we only had some one to instruct us about the physical and moral topography of this castle. Ah! when one thinks that for twenty years, during which time I did not know what to do with myself, it never occurred to me to come to study Rueil.”
“What difference does that make?” said Porthos. “We shall go out all the same.”
“Do you know, my dear fellow, why master pastrycooks never work with their hands?”
“No,” said Porthos, “but I should be glad to be informed.”
“It is because in the presence of their pupils they fear that some of their tarts or creams may turn out badly cooked.”
“What then?”
“Why, then they would be laughed at, and a master pastrycook must never be laughed at.”
“And what have master pastrycooks to do with us?”