Part 8 (1/2)

”Perhaps you have received bad news from Bracieux?”

”No: they have felled the wood, and it has yielded a third -off in the pools of Pierrefonds?”

”No, h left to stock all the pools in the neighborhood”

”Perhaps your estate at Vallon has been destroyed by an earthquake?”

”No, htning a hundred paces fro 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

”Well! do you co has caused a hundredinvitations And so,to Vaux?”

”Indeed I aht”

”Alas! I doubt it, though”

”Everything that is grand in France will be brought together there!”

”Ah!” cried Porthos, tearing out a lock of hair in his despair

”Eh! good heavens, are you ill?” cried D'Artagnan

”I am as firm as the Pont-Neuf! It isn't that”

”But what is it, then?”

”'Tis that I have no clothes!”

D'Artagnan stood petrified ”No clothes! Porthos, no clothes!” he cried, ”when I see at least fifty suits on the floor”

”Fifty, truly; but not one which fits me!”

”What? not one that fits you? But are you not ive an order?”

”To be sure he is,” answered Mouston; ”but unfortunately _I_ have gotten stouter!”

”What! _you_ stouter!”

”So er than the baron Would you believe it, monsieur?”

”_Parbleu!_ it seems to me that is quite evident”