“Where is the hay dealer’s?”

“At the last large door in the street.”

“Are there any other people in Saint Germain who sell straw?”

“Yes; there’s the landlord of the Lamb, and Gros-Louis the farmer; they both live in the Rue des Ursulines.”

“Very well.”

D’Artagnan went instantly to the hay dealer and bargained with him for a hundred and fifty trusses of straw, which he obtained, at the rate of three pistoles each.  He went afterward to the innkeeper and bought from him two hundred trusses at the same price.  Finally, Farmer Louis sold them eighty trusses, making in all four hundred and thirty.

There was no more to be had in Saint Germain.  This foraging did not occupy more than half an hour.  Mousqueton, duly instructed, was put at the head of this sudden and new business.  He was cautioned not to let a bit of straw out of his hands under a louis the truss, and they intrusted to him straw to the amount of four hundred and thirty louis.  D’Artagnan, taking with him three trusses of straw, returned to the chateau, where everybody, freezing with cold and more than half asleep, envied the king, the queen, and the Duke of Orleans, on their camp beds.  The lieutenant’s entrance produced a burst of laughter in the great drawing-room; but he did not appear to notice that he was the object of general attention, but began to arrange, with so much cleverness, nicety and gayety, his straw bed, that the mouths of all these poor creatures, who could not go to sleep, began to water.

“Straw!” they all cried out, “straw! where is there any to be found?”

“I can show you,” answered the Gascon.

And he conducted them to Mousqueton, who freely distributed the trusses at the rate of a louis apiece.  It was thought rather dear, but people wanted to sleep, and who would not give even two or three louis for a few hours of sound sleep?

D’Artagnan gave up his bed to any one who wanted it, making it over about a dozen times; and since he was supposed to have paid, like the others, a louis for his truss of straw, he pocketed in that way thirty louis in less than half an hour.  At five o’clock in the morning the straw was worth eighty francs a truss and there was no more to be had.

D’Artagnan had taken the precaution to set apart four trusses for his own use.  He put in his pocket the key of the room where he had hidden them, and accompanied by Porthos returned to settle with Mousqueton, who, naively, and like the worthy steward that he was, handed them four hundred and thirty louis and kept one hundred for himself.

Mousqueton, who knew nothing of what was going on in the chateau, wondered that the idea had not occurred to him sooner.  D’Artagnan put the gold in his hat, and in going back to the chateau settled the reckoning with Porthos, each of them had cleared two hundred and fifteen louis.