‘Tis true that its height was made up of three Venetian plates of glass, placed one above another, and its breadth of three similar parallelograms in juxtaposition.”

“Oh, Porthos! what excellent words you have command of. Where in the word did you acquire such a voluminous vocabulary?”

“At Belle-Isle. Aramis and I had to use such words in our strategic studies and castramentative experiments.”

D’Artagnan recoiled, as though the sesquipedalian syllables had knocked the breath out of his body.

“Ah! very good. Let us return to the looking-glass, my friend.”

“Then, this good M.

Voliere — ”