"Still," said the grocer, "if your reflections were at all like those which led you to restore King Charles II.;" and Planchet finished by a little laugh which was not without its meaning. "Ah, Planchet, my friend," returned D'Artagnan, "you are getting ambitious." "Is there no other king to be restored, M. d'Artagnan--no other Monk to be put into a box?" "No, my dear Planchet; all the kings are seated on their various thrones--less comfortably so, perhaps, than I am upon this chair; but, at all events, there they are." And D'Artagnan sighed very deeply. "Monsieur d'Artagnan," said Planchet, "you are making me very uneasy." "You're very good, Planchet." "I begin to suspect something." "What is it?" "Monsieur d'Artagnan, you are getting thin." "Oh!" said D'Artagnan, striking his chest, which sounded like an empty cuirass; "it is impossible, Planchet." "Ah!" said Planchet, slightly overcome, "if you were to get thin in my house--" "Well?" "I should do something rash." "What would you do? Tell me." "I should look out for the man who was the cause of all your anxieties." "Ah! according to your account, I am anxious now." "Yes, you are anxious, and you are getting thin, visibly getting thin. Malaga! if you go on getting thin in this way, I will take my sword in my hand, and go straight to M. d'Herblay, and have it out with him." "What!" said M. d'Artagnan, starting in his chair--"what's that you say? And what has M. d'Herblay's name to do with your groceries?" "Just as you please. Get angry if you like, or call me names, if you prefer it: but the deuce is in it--I know what I know." D'Artagnan had, during this second outburst of Planchet, so placed himself as not to lose a single look of his face--that is, he sat with both his hands resting on his knees, and his head stretched out toward the grocer. "Come, explain yourself," he said, "and tell me how you could possibly utter such a blasphemy. M. d'Herblay, your old master, my friend, an ecclesiastic, a musketeer turned bishop--do you mean to say you would raise your sword against him, Planchet?" "I could raise my sword against my own father, when I see you in such a state as you are now." "M. d'Herblay, a gentleman!" "It's all the same to me whether he's a gentleman or not. He gives you the blue devils, that is all I know. And the blue devils make people get thin. Malaga! I have no notion of M. d'Artagnan leaving my house thinner than he entered it." "How does he give me the blue devils, as you call it? Come, explain, explain." "You have had the nightmare during the last three nights." "I?" "Yes, you; and in your nightmare you called out, several times, 'Aramis, sly Aramis!'" "Ah! I said that, did I?" murmured D'Artagnan, uneasily. "Yes, those very words, upon my honor." "Well, what else? You know the saying, Planchet, 'dreams go by contraries.'"