“It appears to me that if my boots need a sponge, your stockings and shoes stand in equal need of a brush. May you not have been philandering a little also, Monsieur Bonacieux? Oh, the devil! That’s unpardonable in a man of your age, and who besides, has such a pretty wife as yours.”

“Oh, Lord! no,” said Bonacieux, “but yesterday I went to St. Mande to make some inquiries after a servant, as I cannot possibly do without one; and the roads were so bad that I brought back all this mud, which I have not yet had time to remove.”

The place named by Bonacieux as that which had been the object of his journey was a fresh proof in support of the suspicions d’Artagnan had conceived. Bonacieux had named Mande because Mande was in an exactly opposite