the four friends. Thus they applied very curtly to the salutations, healths, and jokes of their companions.

“I see how it will be,” said Athos: “we shall get into some pretty quarrel or other, and we have no need of one just now. D’Artagnan, tell us what sort of a night you have had, and we will describe ours afterward.”

“Ah, yes,” said a light-horseman, with a glass of brandy in his hand, which he sipped slowly. “I hear you gentlemen of the Guards have been in the trenches tonight, and that you did not get much the best of the Rochellais.”

D’Artagnan looked at Athos to know if he ought to reply to this intruder who thus mixed unasked in their conversation.

“Well,”