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I should certainly, after all, prefer to call him what did you say his other name was?" "Poquelin." "I prefer to call him Poquelin." "And how will you remember this name better than the other?" "You understand, he calls himself Poquelin, does he not?" "Yes." "If I were to call to mind Madame Coquenard." "Good."
Coquenard filled her own plate, and distributed the crusts without soup to the impatient clerks. At this moment the door of the dining room unclosed with a creak, and Porthos perceived through the half-open flap the little clerk who, not being allowed to take part in the feast, ate his dry bread in the passage with the double odor of the dining room and kitchen.
"Madame Coquenard," said Porthos, "remember the first letter you wrote me, and which I preserve engraved in my memory." The procurator's wife uttered a groan. "Besides," said she, "the sum you required me to borrow was rather large." "Madame Coquenard, I gave you the preference.
M. Coquenard, after the luxuries of such a repast, which he called an excess, felt the want of a siesta.
Coquenard therefore entered the office from the house at the same moment her guest entered from the stairs, and the appearance of the worthy lady relieved him from an awkward embarrassment. The clerks surveyed him with great curiosity, and he, not knowing well what to say to this ascending and descending scale, remained tongue-tied. "It is my cousin!" cried the procurator's wife.
"Conspiring did not bring him here?" "No, Madame." "Monsieur, one more question, and then I will go. Is there a Mademoiselle Catharine Coquenard upon your books?" "Peasant or noble?" "Peasant, Monsieur, of a positive type," with enough scorn to attract the governor's ear. He consulted his books, wondering what it was all about. "No such name, Madame," he said, finally, "I regret to say."
Accept my compliments; your dinner has been a real feast. Lord, how I have eaten!" M. Coquenard had eaten his soup, the black feet of the fowl, and the only mutton bone on which there was the least appearance of meat. Porthos fancied they were mystifying him, and began to curl his mustache and knit his eyebrows; but the knee of Mme. Coquenard gently advised him to be patient.
"Indeed!" thought Porthos, casting a glance at the three hungry clerks for the errand boy, as might be expected, was not admitted to the honors of the magisterial table, "in my cousin's place, I would not keep such gourmands! They look like shipwrecked sailors who have not eaten for six weeks." M. Coquenard entered, pushed along upon his armchair with casters by Mme.
Porthos ate his wing of the fowl timidly, and shuddered when he felt the knee of the procurator's wife under the table, as it came in search of his. He also drank half a glass of this sparingly served wine, and found it to be nothing but that horrible Montreuil the terror of all expert palates. M. Coquenard saw him swallowing this wine undiluted, and sighed deeply.
He was about at last to pass that mysterious threshold, to climb those unknown stairs by which, one by one, the old crowns of M. Coquenard had ascended.
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