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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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Twenty Years Later 65 at Prostate Health
thus whilst combing it.
As Grimaud entered he saw this comb on the tea-table; he
took it up, and as he took it he made a low bow.
The duke looked at this strange figure with surprise. The
figure put the comb in its pocket.
"Ho! hey! whats that?" cried the duke. "Who is this
creature?"
Grimaud did not answer, but bowed a second time.
"Art thou dumb?" cried the duke.
Grimaud made a sign that he was not.
"What art thou, then? Answer! I command thee!" said the
duke.
"A keeper," replied Grimaud.
"A keeper!" reiterated the duke; "there was nothing wanting
in my collection, except this gallows-bird. Halloo! La
Ramee! some one!"
La Ramee ran in haste to obey the call.
"Who is this wretch who takes my comb and puts it in his
pocket?" asked the duke.
"One of your guards, my prince; a man of talent and merit,
whom you will like, as I and Monsieur de Chavigny do, I am
sure."
"Why does he take my comb?"
"Why do you take my lords comb?" asked La Ramee.
Grimaud drew the comb from his pocket and passing his
fingers over the largest teeth, pronounced this one word,
"Pointed."
"True," said La Ramee.
"What does the animal say?" asked the duke.
"That the king has forbidden your lordship to have any
pointed instrument."
"Are you mad, La Ramee? You yourself gave me this comb."
"I was very wrong, my lord, for in giving it to you I acted
in opposition to my orders."
The duke looked furiously at Grimaud.
"I perceive that this creature will be my particular
aversion," he muttered.
Grimaud, nevertheless, was resolved for certain reasons not
at once to come to a full rupture with the prisoner; he
wanted to inspire, not a sudden repugnance, but a good,
sound, steady hatred; he retired, therefore, and gave place
to four guards, who, having breakfasted, could attend on the
prisoner.
A fresh practical joke now occurred to the duke. He had
asked for crawfish for his breakfast on the following
morning; he intended to pass the day in making a small
gallows and hang one of the finest of these fish in the
middle of his room -- the red color evidently conveying an
allusion to the cardinal -- so that he might have the
pleasure of hanging Mazarin in effigy without being accused
of having hung anything more significant than a crawfish.
The day was employed in preparations for the execution.
Every one grows childish in prison, but the character of
Monsieur de Beaufort was particularly disposed to become so.
In the course of his mornings walk he collected two or
three small branches from a tree and found a small piece of
broken glass, a discovery that quite delighted him. When he
came home he formed his handkerchief into a loop.
Nothing of all this escaped Grimaud, but La Ramee looked on
with the curiosity of a father who thinks that he may
perhaps get a cheap idea concerning a new toy for his
children. The guards looked on it with indifference. When
everything was ready, the gallows hung in the middle of the
room, the loop made, and when the duke had cast a glance
upon the plate of crawfish, in order to select the finest
specimen among them, he looked around for his piece of
glass; it had disappeared.
"Who has taken my piece of glass?" asked the duke, frowning.
Grimaud made a sign to denote that he had done so.
"What! thou again! Why didst thou take it?"
"Yes -- why?" asked La Ramee.
Grimaud, who held the piece of glass in his hand, said:
"Sharp."
"True, my lord!" exclaimed La Ramee. "Ah! deuce take it! we
have a precious fellow here!"
"Monsieur Grimaud!" said the duke, "for your sake I beg of
you, never come within the reach of my fist!"
"Hush! hush!" cried La Ramee, "give me your gibbet, my lord.
I will shape it out for you with my knife."
And he took the gibbet and shaped it out as neatly as
possible.
"Thats it," said the duke, "now make me a little hole in
the floor whilst I go and fetch the culprit."
La Ramee knelt down and made a hole in the floor; meanwhile
the duke hung the crawfish up by a thread. Then he placed
the gibbet in the middle of the room, bursting with
laughter.
La Ramee laughed also and the guards laughed in chorus;
Grimaud, however, did not even smile. He approached La Ramee
and showing him the crawfish hung up by the thread:
"Cardinal," he said.
"Hung by order of his Highness the Duc de Beaufort!" cried
the prisoner, laughing violently, "and by Master
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