The Rat and the Cheese.
D'Artagnan and Porthos returned on foot, as D'Artagnan had set out. When
D'Artagnan, as he entered the shop of the Pilon d'Or, announced to Planchet that
M. du Vallon would be one of the privileged travelers, and as the plume in
Porthos's hat made the wooden candles suspended over the front jingle together,
a melancholy presentiment seemed to eclipse the delight Planchet had promised
himself for the morrow. But the grocer had a heart of gold, ever mindful of the
good old times - a trait that carries youth into old age. So Planchet,
notwithstanding a sort of internal shiver, checked as soon as experienced,
received Porthos with respect, mingled with the tenderest cordiality. Porthos, who
was a little cold and stiff in his manners at first, on account of the social
difference existing at that period between a baron and a grocer, soon began to
soften when he perceived so much good-feeling and so many kind attentions in
Planchet. He was particularly touched by the liberty which was permitted him to
plunge his great palms into the boxes of dried fruits and preserves, into the sacks
of nuts and almonds, and into the drawers full of sweetmeats. So that,
notwithstanding Planchet's pressing invitations to go upstairs to the entresol, he
chose as his favorite seat, during the evening which he had to spend at
Planchet's house, the shop itself, where his fingers could always fish up whatever
his nose detected. The delicious figs from Provence, filberts from the forest,
Tours plums, were subjects of his uninterrupted attention for five consecutive
hours. His teeth, like millstones, cracked heaps of nuts, the shells of which were
scattered all over the floor, where they were trampled by every one who went in
and out of the shop; Porthos pulled from the stalk with his lips, at one mouthful,
bunches of the rich Muscatel raisins with their beautiful bloom, half a pound of
which passed at one gulp from his mouth to his stomach. In one of the corners of
the shop, Planchet's assistants, huddled together, looked at each other without
venturing to open their lips. They did not know who Porthos was, for they had
never seen him before. The race of those Titans who had worn the cuirasses of
Hugh Capet, Philip Augustus, and Francis I. had already begun to disappear.
They could hardly help thinking he might be the ogre of the fairy tale, who was
going to turn the whole contents of Planchet's shop into his insatiable stomach,
and that, too, without in the slightest degree displacing the barrels and chests
that were in it. Cracking, munching, chewing, nibbling, sucking, and swallowing,
Porthos occasionally said to the grocer:
"You do a very good business here, friend Planchet."
"He will very soon have none at all to do, if this sort of thing continues," grumbled
the foreman, who had Planchet's word that he should be his successor. In the
midst of his despair, he approached Porthos, who blocked up the whole of the
passage leading from the back shop to the shop itself. He hoped that Porthos
would rise and that this movement would distract his devouring ideas.
"What do you want, my man?" asked Porthos, affably.
"I should like to pass you, monsieur, if it is not troubling you too much."
