“Ah! now all is explained,” said Porthos; and he embraced D’Artagnan with so much friendship as to deprive the musketeer of his breath for five minutes.

“Why, you are stronger than ever,” said D’Artagnan, “and still, happily, in your arms.”  Porthos saluted D’Artagnan with a gracious smile.  During the five minutes D’Artagnan was recovering his breath, he reflected that he had a very difficult part to play.  It was necessary that he always should question and never reply.  By the time his respiration returned, he had fixed his plans for the campaign.

Chapter LXX:  Wherein the Ideas of D’Artagnan, at first strangely clouded, begin to clear up a little.

D’Artagnan immediately took the offensive.  “Now that I have told you all, dear friend, or rather you have guessed all, tell me what you are doing here, covered with dust and mud?”

Porthos wiped his brow, and looked around him with pride.  “Why, it appears,” said he, “that you may see what I am doing here.”

“No doubt, no doubt, you lift great stones.”

“Oh! to show these idle fellows what a man is,” said Porthos, with contempt.  “But you understand — "

“Yes, that is not your place to lift stones, although there are many whose place it is, who cannot lift them as you do.  It was that which made me ask you, just now.  What are you doing here, baron?”

“I am studying topography, chevalier.”

“You are studying topography?”

“Yes; but you — what are you doing in that common dress?”

D’Artagnan perceived he had committed a fault in giving expression to his astonishment.  Porthos had taken advantage of it, to retort with a question.  “Why,” said he, “you know I am a bourgeois, in fact; my dress, then, has nothing astonishing in it, since it conforms with my condition.”

“Nonsense! you are a musketeer.”

“You are wrong, my friend; I have given in my resignation.”

“Bah!”

“Oh, mon Dieu! yes.”

“And you have abandoned the service?”

“I have quitted it.”

“You have abandoned the king?”

“Quite.”

Porthos raised his arms towards heaven, like a man who has heard extraordinary news.  “Well, that does confound me,” said he.

“It is nevertheless true.”

“And what led you to form such a resolution.”

“The king displeased me.  Mazarin had disgusted me for a long time, as you know; so I threw my cassock to the nettles.”

“But Mazarin is dead.”

“I know that well enough, parbleu! Only, at the period of his death, my resignation had been given in and accepted two months.  Then, feeling myself free, I set off for Pierrefonds, to see my friend Porthos.  I had heard talk of the happy division you had made of your time, and I wished, for a fortnight, to divide mine after your fashion.”

“My friend, you know that it is not for a fortnight my house is open to you; it is for a year — for ten years — for life.”