might be listening. Truchen remained behind at table with Porthos. While the two wine-bibbers were looking behind the firewood for what they wanted, a sharp report was heard like the impact of a pair of lips on a lady’s cheek.

“Porthos fancies himself at La Rochelle,” thought D’Artagnan, as they returned freighted with bottles.

Planchet was singing so loudly that he was incapable of noticing anything. D’Artagnan, whom nothing ever escaped, remarked how much redder Truchen’s left cheek was than her right. Porthos was sitting on Truchen’s left, and was curling with both his hands both sides of his mustache at once, and Truchen was looking at him with a most bewitching smile. The sparkling wine of Anjou very soon produced a remarkable effect upon the three companions. D’Artagnan