“Indeed!”
“And Henry III. always the stomach-ache?”
Raoul began to laugh.
“Well, my dear friend, Louis XIV. always has the heartache; it is deplorable to see a king sighing from morning till night without saying once in course of the day, ventre-saint-gris! corboeuf! or anything to rouse one.”
“Was that the reason why you quitted the service, monsieur le chevalier?”
“Yes.”
“But you yourself, M. d’Artagnan, are throwing the handle after the axe; you will not make a fortune.”
“Who? I?” replied D’Artagnan, in a careless tone; “I am settled—I had some family property.”
Raoul looked at him. The poverty of D’Artagnan was proverbial. A Gascon, he exceeded in ill-luck all the gasconnades of France and Navarre; Raoul had a hundred times heard Job and D’Artagnan named together, as the twins Romulus and Remus. D’Artagnan caught Raoul’s look of astonishment.
“And has not your father told you I have been in England?”