Whilst he was talking to this lad a horse was brought to the door of Bazin’s house.  It was saddled and bridled.  Almost immediately Bazin came downstairs.

“Look!” said the boy, “there’s our beadle, who is going a journey.”

“And where is he going?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Forsooth, I don’t know.”

“Half a pistole if you can find out,” said D’Artagnan.

“For me?” cried the boy, his eyes sparkling with joy, “if I can find out where Bazin is going?  That is not difficult.  You are not joking, are you?”

“No, on the honor of an officer; there is the half-pistole;” and he showed him the seductive coin, but did not give it him.

“I shall ask him.”

“Just the very way not to know.  Wait till he is set out and then, marry, come up, ask, and find out.  The half-pistole is ready,” and he put it back again into his pocket.

“I understand,” said the child, with that jeering smile which marks especially the “gamin de Paris.”  “Well, we must wait.”

They had not long to wait.  Five minutes afterward Bazin set off on a full trot, urging on his horse by the blows of a parapluie, which he was in the habit of using instead of a riding whip.

Scarcely had he turned the corner of the Rue de la Juiverie when the boy rushed after him like a bloodhound on full scent.

Before ten minutes had elapsed the child returned.

“Well!” said D’Artagnan.

“Well!” answered the boy, “the thing is done.”

“Where is he gone?”

“The half-pistole is for me?”

“Doubtless, answer me.”

“I want to see it.  Give it me, that I may see it is not false.”

“There it is.”

The child put the piece of money into his pocket.

“And now, where is he gone?” inquired D’Artagnan.

“He is gone to Noisy.”

“How dost thou know?”

“Ah, faith! there was no great cunning necessary.  I knew the horse he rode; it belonged to the butcher, who lets it out now and then to M. Bazin.  Now I thought that the butcher would not let his horse out like that without knowing where it was going.  And he answered `that Monsieur Bazin went to Noisy.’  ’Tis his custom.  He goes two or three times a week.”

“Dost thou know Noisy well?”

“I think so, truly; my nurse lives there.”

“Is there a convent at Noisy?”

“Isn’t there a great and grand one —­ the convent of Jesuits?”

“What is thy name?”

“Friquet.”

D’Artagnan wrote the child’s name in his tablets.

“Please, sir,” said the boy, “do you think I can gain any more half-pistoles in any way?”

“Perhaps,” replied D’Artagnan.

And having got out all he wanted, he paid for the hypocras, which he did not drink, and went quickly back to the Rue Tiquetonne.

8

How D’Artagnan, on going to a Distance to discover Aramis, discovers his old Friend on Horseback behind his own Planchet.