“Locked!” repeated Mousqueton.
“But,” Blaisois ventured to say, “I have heard you relate, Monsieur Mousqueton, that once on a time, at Chantilly, you fed your master and yourself by taking partridges in a snare, carp with a line, and bottles with a slipnoose.”
“Perfectly true; but there was an airhole in the cellar and the wine was in bottles. I cannot throw the loop through this partition nor move with a pack-thread a cask of wine which may perhaps weigh two hundred pounds.”
“No, but you can take out two or three boards of the partition,” answered Blaisois, “and make a hole in the cask with a gimlet.”
Mousqueton opened his great round eyes to the