“I am looking.” D’Artagnan, in fact, appeared absorbed in observations. Jupenet drew from his pocket seven or eight other pieces of brass smaller than the first.
“Ah, ah,” said D’Artagnan.
“What!”
“You have, then, a whole printing-office in your pocket. Peste! that is curious, indeed.”
“Is it not?”
“Good God, what a number of things we learn by traveling.”
“To your health!” said Jupenet, quite enchanted.
“To yours, mordioux, to yours. But—an instant—not in this cider. It is an abominable drink, unworthy of a man who quenches his thirst at the Hippocrene fountain—is not it so you call your fountain, you poets?”
“Yes, monsieur, our fountain is so called. That comes from two Greek words—hippos, which means a horse, and——”
“Monsieur,” interrupted D’Artagnan, “you shall drink of a liquor which comes from one single French word, and is none the worse for that—from the word grape; this cider gives me the heartburn. Allow me to inquire of your host if there is not a good bottle of Beaugency, or of the Ceran growth, at the back of the large bins in his cellar.”