"Ah!" he repeated, "you are always welcome, dear friend; but just now you are more welcome than ever." "But you seem to have the megrims here!" exclaimed D'Artagnan.
Porthos replied by a look expressive of dejection.

"Well, then, tell me all about it, Porthos, my friend, unless it is a secret." "In the first place," returned Porthos, "you know I have no secrets from you.

This, then, is what saddens me." "Wait a minute, Porthos; let me first get rid of all this litter of satin and velvet!" "Oh, never mind," said Porthos, contemptuously; "it is all trash." "Trash, Porthos! Cloth at twenty-five livres an ell! gorgeous satin! regal velvet!" "Then you think these clothes are--" "Splendid, Porthos, splendid! I'll wager that you alone in France have so many; and suppose you never had any more made, and were to live to be a hundred years of age, which wouldn't astonish me in the very least, you could still wear a new dress the day of your death, without being obliged to see the nose of a single tailor from now till then." Porthos shook his head.
"Come, my friend," said D'Artagnan, "this unnatural melancholy in you frightens me.

My dear Porthos, pray get it out, then.

And the sooner the better." "Yes, my friend, so I will: if, indeed, it is possible." "Perhaps you have received bad news from Bracieux ?" "No: they have felled the wood, and it has yielded a third more than the estimate." "Then there has been a falling-off in the pools of Pierrefonds ?" "No, my friend: they have been fished, and there is enough left to stock all the pools in the neighborhood." "Perhaps your estate at Vallon has been destroyed by an earthquake ?" "No, my friend; on the contrary, the ground was struck with lightning a hundred paces from the chateau, and a fountain sprung up in a place entirely destitute of water." "What in the world _is_ the matter, then ?" "The fact is, I have received an invitation for the _fete_ at Vaux," said Porthos, with a lugubrious expression.
"Well! do you complain of that?
The king has caused a hundred mortal heart-burnings among the courtiers by refusing invitations.