They did not know who Porthos was, for they had never seen him before.

The race of those Titans who had worn the cuirasses of Hugh Capet, Philip Augustus, and Francis I.had already begun to disappear.

They could hardly help thinking he might be the ogre of the fairy tale, who was going to turn the whole contents of Planchet's shop into his insatiable stomach, and that, too, without in the slightest degree displacing the barrels and chests that were in it.

Cracking, munching, chewing, nibbling, sucking, and swallowing, Porthos occasionally said to the grocer: "You do a very good business here, friend Planchet." "He will very soon have none at all to do, if this sort of thing continues," grumbled the foreman, who had Planchet's word that he should be his successor.

In the midst of his despair, he approached Porthos, who blocked up the whole of the passage leading from the back shop to the shop itself.