“Come, my friend,” said D’Artagnan, “this unnatural melancholy in you frightens me. My dear Porthos, pray get it out, then. And the sooner the better.”
“Yes, my friend, so I will: if, indeed, it is possible.”
“Perhaps you have received bad news from Bracieux?”
“No: they have felled the wood, and it has yielded a third more than the estimate.”
“Then there has been a falling-off in the pools of Pierrefonds?”
“No, my friend: they have been fished, and there is enough left to stock all the pools in the neighborhood.”
“Perhaps your estate at Vallon has been destroyed by an earthquake?”
“No, my friend; on the contrary, the ground was struck with lightning a hundred paces from the chateau, and a fountain sprung up in a place entirely destitute of water.”
“What in the world is the matter, then?”
“The fact is, I have received an invitation for the fete at Vaux,” said Porthos, with a lugubrious expression.