CHAPTER XI.
THE RAT AND THE CHEESE.
D'Artagnan and Porthos returned on foot, as D'Artagnan had arrived.

When D'Artagnan, as he entered the shop of the Pilon d'Or, had announced to Planchet that M.de Valon would be one of the privileged travelers, and when the plume in Porthos' hat had made the wooden candles suspended over the front jingle together, something almost like a melancholy presentiment troubled the delight which Planchet had promised himself for the next day.

But the grocer's heart was of sterling metal, a precious relic of the good old time, which always remains what it has always been for those who are getting old the time of their youth, and for those who are young the old age of their ancestors.

Planchet, notwithstanding the sort of internal shiver, which he checked immediately he experienced it, received Porthos, therefore, with a respect mingled with the most tender cordiality.

Porthos, who was a little cold and stiff in his manners at first, on account of the social difference which existed at that period between a baron and a grocer, soon began to get a little softened when he perceived so much good-feeling and so many kind attentions in Planchet.