Chapter 4

Chapter IV:
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."