“Oh! to show these idle fellows what a man is,” said Porthos, with contempt. “But you understand——”
“Yes, that it is not your place to lift stones, although there are many whose place it is, who cannot lift them as you do. It was that which made me ask you, just now, What are you doing here, baron?”
“I am studying topography, chevalier.”
“You are studying topography?”
“Yes; but you—what are you doing in that common dress?”
D’Artagnan perceived he had committed a fault in giving expression to his astonishment. Porthos had taken advantage of it, to retort with a question. “Why,” said he, “you know I am a bourgeois, in fact; my dress, then, has nothing astonishing in it, since it conforms with my condition.”
“Nonsense! you are a musketeer.”
“You are wrong, my friend; I have given in my resignation.”
“Bah!”
“Oh, mon Dieu! yes.”