"Alexandre Dumas. The Three Musketeers." - читать интересную книгу автора

his hand composed a balsam, with which he anointed his numerous wounds,
replacing his bandages himself, and positively refusing the assistance of
any doc-tor, D'Artagnan walked about that same evening, and was almost
cured by the morrow.
But when the time came to pay for his rosemary, this oil, and the
wine, the only expense the master had incurred, as he had preserved a
strict abstinence--while on the contrary, the yellow horse, by the account
of the hostler at least, had eaten three times as much as a horse of his
size could reasonably supposed to have done--D'Artagnan found nothing in
his pocket but his little old velvet purse with the eleven crowns it
contained; for as to the letter addressed to M. de Treville, it had
disappeared.
The young man commenced his search for the letter with the greatest
patience, turning out his pockets of all kinds over and over again,
rummaging and rerummaging in his valise, and opening and reopening his
purse; but when he found that he had come to the convic-tion that the
letter was not to be found, he flew, for the third time, into such a rage
as was near costing him a fresh consumption of wine, oil, and rosemary--for
upon seeing this hot- headed youth become exasperated and threaten to
destroy everything in the establishment if his letter were not found, the
host seized a spit, his wife a broom handle, and the ser-vants the same
sticks they had used the day before.
"My letter of recommendation!" cried D'Artagnan, "my letter of
recommendation! or, the holy blood, I will spit you all like ortolans!"
Unfortunately, there was one circumstance which created a powerful
obstacle to the ac-complishment of this threat; which was, as we have
related, that his sword had been in his first conflict broken in two, and
which he had entirely forgotten. Hence, it resulted when D'Artagnan
proceeded to draw his sword in earnest, he found himself purely and simply
armed with a stump of a sword about eight or ten inches in length, which
the host had carefully placed in the scabbard. As to the rest of the blade,
the master had slyly put that on one side to make himself a larding pin.
But this deception would probably not have stopped our fiery young man
if the host had not reflected that the reclamation which his guest made was
perfectly just.
"But, after all," said he, lowering the point of his spit, "where is
this letter?"
"Yes, where is this letter?" cried D'Artagnan. "In the first place, I
warn you that that letter is for Monsieur de Treville, and it must be
found, he will not know how to find it."
His threat completed the intimidation of the host. After the king and
the cardinal, M. de Treville was the man whose name was perhaps most
frequently repeated by the military, and even by citizens. There was, to be
sure, Father Joseph, but his name was never pro-nounced but with a subdued
voice, such was the terror inspired by his Gray Eminence, as the cardinal's
familiar was called.
Throwing down his spit, and ordering his wife to do the same with her
broom handle, and the servants with their sticks, he set the first example
of commencing an earnest search for the lost letter.
"Does the letter contain anything valuable?" demanded the host, after