play, or hearts of diamond not to be enchanted when such a bland smile enlivened the lips of the musketeer.  Raoul, following his friend, cajoled the women who admired his beauty, pushed back the men who felt the rigidity of his muscles, and both opened, thanks to these maneuvers, the compact and muddy tide of the populace.  They arrived in sight of the two gibbets, from which Raoul turned away his eyes in disgust.  As for D’Artagnan, he did not even see them; his house with its gabled roof, its windows crowded with the curious, attracted and even absorbed all the attention he was capable of.  He distinguished in the Place and around the houses a good number of musketeers on leave, who, some with women, others with friends, awaited the crowning ceremony.  What rejoiced him above all was to see that his tenant, the cabaretier, was so busy he hardly knew which way to turn.  Three lads could not supply the drinkers.  They filled the shop, the chambers, and the court, even.  D’Artagnan called Raoul’s attention to this concourse, adding:  “The fellow will have no excuse for not paying his rent.  Look at those drinkers, Raoul, one would say they were jolly companions. Mordioux! why, there is no room anywhere!” D’Artagnan, however, contrived to catch hold of the master by the corner of his apron, and to make himself known to him.

“Ah, monsieur le chevalier,” said the cabaretier, half distracted, “one minute if you please.  I have here a hundred mad devils turning my cellar upside down.”

“The cellar, if you like, but not the money-box.”

“Oh, monsieur, your thirty-seven and a half pistoles are all counted out ready for you, upstairs in my chamber; but there are in that chamber thirty customers, who are sucking the staves of a little barrel of Oporto which I tapped for them this very morning.  Give me a minute, — only a minute?”

“So be it; so be it.”

“I will go,” said Raoul, in a low voice, to D’Artagnan; “this hilarity is vile!”

“Monsieur,” replied D’Artagnan, sternly, “you will please to remain where you are.  The soldier ought to familiarize himself with all kinds of spectacles.  There are in the eye, when it is young, fibers which we must learn how to harden; and we are not truly generous and good save from the moment when the eye has become hardened, and the heart remains tender.  Besides, my little Raoul, would you leave me alone here?  That would be very wrong of you.  Look, there is yonder in the lower court a tree, and under the shade of that tree we shall breathe more freely than in this hot atmosphere of spilt wine.”