Chapter 5 - Page 2

me!”

“Ah, bah! tell me how he did it!”

“First, then, they went, I don’t know where, for a number of lay figures, of all heights and sizes, hoping there would be one to suit mine; but the largest- that of the drum-major of the Swiss Guard- was two inches too short, and half a foot too slender.”

“Indeed!”

“It is exactly as I tell you, d’Artagnan; but he is a great man, or at the very least a great tailor, is this M. Moliere. He was not at all put at fault by the circumstance.”

“What did he do, then?”

“Oh, it is a very simple matter! I’ faith, ’tis an unheard of thing that people should have been so stupid as not to have discovered this method from the first. What annoyance and humiliation they would have spared me!”

“Not to speak of the dresses, my dear Porthos.”

“Yes, thirty dresses.”

“Well, my dear Porthos, tell me M. Moliere’s plan.”

“Moliere? You call him so, do you? I shall make a point of recollecting his name.”

“Yes; or Poquelin, if you prefer that.”

“No; I like Moliere best. When I wish to recollect his name, I shall think of voliere [an aviary]; and as I have one at Pierrefonds-”

“Capital!” returned d’Artagnan; and M. Moliere’s plan?”

“‘Tis this: instead of pulling me to pieces, as all these rascals do, making me bend in my back, and double my joints,- all of them low and dishonorable practices-” D’Artagnan made a sign of approbation with his head. “‘Monsieur,’ he said to me,” continued Porthos, “‘a gentleman ought to measure himself. Do me the pleasure to draw near this glass’; and I drew near the glass. I must own I did not exactly understand what this good M. Voliere wanted with me-”

“Moliere.”

“Ah, yes, Moliere, Moliere. And as the fear of being measured still possessed me, ‘Take care,’ said I to him, ‘what you are going to do with me; I am very ticklish, I warn you!’ But he, with his soft voice (for he is a courteous fellow, we must admit, my friend),- he, with his soft voice, said: ‘Monsieur, that your dress may fit you well, it must be made according to your figure. Your figure is exactly reflected in this mirror. We shall measure this reflection.’”

“In fact,” said d’Artagnan, “you saw yourself in the glass; but where did they find one in which you could see your whole figure?”

“My good friend, it is the very glass in which the King sees himself.”

“Yes; but the King is a foot and a