Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary ParodyLang, Andrew
General
Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody
Lang, Andrew
Imaginary letters; Parodies; Wit and humor
But of siclike least said soonest mended. I take cloak and sword, and
follow with his lordship and two other experienced cavaliers unto the
place of rencontre, being a waste croft whereon a loon was herding goats,
behind the Palace of the Luxembourg. Here we find waiting us four
soldados, proper tall men of their hands, who receive us courteously. He
that first gave cause of quarrel to my Lord Winter bore a worthy name
enough out of Gascony, that is _arida nutrix_, as we said at the
Mareschal College, of honourable soldados—to wit, as I said, he was
Monsieur d’Artagnan. To his friends, howbeit, he gave sic heathen titles
as I never saw or heard of out of the Grecian books: namely, Monsieur
Porthos, a very tall man, albeit something of a _lourdaud_; Monsieur
Athos; and he that was to be mine own opposite, Monsieur Aramis. Hearing
these outlandish and insolent appellations, I thought it becoming me, as
an honourable cavalier, to resent this fashion of presenting: and
demurred that a gentleman of the House of Dalgetty of Drumthwacket could
neither take affront from, nor give honourable satisfaction to, a
nameless landlouper. Wherein your lordship, I doubt me not, will hold me
justificate.
Lord Winter homologating mine opinion, he that called himself Athos drew
each of us apart, and whispered the true names and qualities territorial
of these gentlemen; the whilk, as may befall honourable soldados, they
had reason sufficient to conceal while serving as private gentlemen in a
regiment, though disdaining to receive halberds, as unbecoming their
birth. He that aligned himself forenenst me was styled the Chevalier
d’Herblay; and, the word being given, we fell to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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