We have already said night was closing in, the shops were being lighted, while the windows of the upper apartments were being closed, and the irregular steps of a patrol of soldiers forming the night-watch could be heard in the distance. D'Artagnan continued, however, to think of nothing, and to look at nothing, except the blue corner of the sky. A few paces from him, completely in the shade, lying on his stomach, upon a sack of Indian corn, was Planchet, with both his arms under his chin, and his eyes fixed on D'Artagnan, who was either thinking, dreaming, or sleeping, with his eyes open. Planchet had been watching him for a tolerably long time, and, by way of interruption, he began by exclaiming, "Hum! hum!" But D'Artagnan did not stir. Planchet then saw that it was necessary to have recourse to a more effectual means still. After a prolonged reflection on the subject, the most ingenious means which suggested itself to him under present circumstances was to let himself roll off the sack on to the floor, murmuring at the same time, against himself, the word "stupid." But notwithstanding the noise produced by Planchet's fall, D'Artagnan, who had in the course of his existence heard many other, and very different noises, did not appear to pay the least attention to the present one. Besides, an enormous cart, laden with stones passing from La Rue Saint-Mederie, absorbed, in the noise of its wheels, the noise of Planchet's fall. And yet Planchet fancied that, in token of tacit approval, he saw him imperceptibly smile at the word "stupid." This emboldened him to say, "Are you asleep, Monsieur d'Artagnan?" "No, Planchet, I am not _even_ asleep," replied the musketeer. "I am in despair," said Planchet, "to hear such a word as _even_." "Well, and why not? Is it not a good French word, Monsieur Planchet?" "Of course, Monsieur d'Artagnan." "Well?" "Well, then, the word distresses me beyond measure." "Tell me why you are distressed, Planchet," said D'Artagnan. "If you say that you are not _even_ asleep, it is as much as to say that you have not even the consolation of being able to sleep; or, better still, it is precisely the same as telling me that you are getting bored to death." "Planchet, you know I am never bored." "Except to-day and the day before yesterday." "Bah!" "Monsieur d'Artagnan, it is a week since you returned here from Fontainebleau; in other words, you have no longer your orders to issue, or your men to review and maneuver. You need the sound of guns, drums, and all that din and confusion; I, who have myself carried a musket, can easily believe that." "Planchet," replied D'Artagnan, "I assure you I am not bored the least in the world." "In that case, what are you doing, lying there as if you were dead?"