Lagardere's voice was as cheerful as if there were no such thing in the
world as exile. "Well, there I was at my wit's end, and my nimble wits
found work for me. 'If I must leave France,' I said, 'I will go to Spain,
where the spirit of chivalry still reigns.' So I raised a regiment of
adventurers like myself--broken gentlemen, ruined spendthrifts, poor
devils out at elbow, gallant soldiers of fortune one and all. They wait
for me a mile from here. We shall find work to do in Spain or elsewhere.
The world is wide, and it has always work for good swords to do."
Cocardasse looked at him admiringly. "Your sword will never rust for want
of use," he said, with approval.
Lagardere answered him, briskly: "Why should it? 'Tis the best friend in
the world. What woman's eye ever shone as brightly as its blade, what
woman's tongue ever discoursed such sweet music?"
Cocardasse took off his hat and swung it. "Hurrah for the sword!" he
shouted.
Lagardere's glance applauded his enthusiasm. "Iron was God's best gift to
man, and he God's good servant who hammered it into shape and gave it
point and edge. I shall never be happy until I am master of it."
Æsop joined the conversation mockingly. "I thought you were master of
it," he said, with an obvious sneer.
Cocardasse and Passepoil looked horrified at the hunchback's
impertinence, but Lagardere did not seem to be vexed, and answered, quite
amiably: "So did I till lately." Then he said, addressing himself
generally to the company: "Have any of you ever heard of the thrust of
Nevers?"
A tremor of excitement ran through his audience. Cocardasse took up the
talk: "We spoke of it but now."
"Well," said Lagardere, "what do you think of it?"
Æsop, the irrepressible, thrust in his opinion. "Never was secret thrust
invented that cannot be parried."
Lagardere looked at him somewhat contemptuously. "So I thought till I
crossed swords with Nevers. Now I think differently."
Cocardasse whistled. "The devil you do," he commented.
"I will tell you all about it," said Lagardere. "It happened three months
ago. That secret thrust piqued me. Then people talked too much about
Nevers; that irritated me. Wherever I went, from court to camp, from
tavern to palace, the name of Nevers was dinned in my ears. The barber
dressed your hair à la Nevers. The tailor cut your coat à la Nevers.
Fops carried canes à la Nevers; ladies scented themselves à la Nevers.
One day at the inn they served me cutlets à la Nevers. I flung the damned
dish out of the window. On the doorstep I met my boot-maker, who offered
to sell me a pair of boots à la Nevers. I cuffed the rascal and flung him
ten louis as a salve. But the knave only said to me: 'Monsieur de Nevers
beat me once, but he gave me a hundred pistoles.'"
Passepoil sighed for the sorrows of his young pupil: "Poor little
Parisian!"
Lagardere went on with his tale: "Now I am vainglorious enough to hold
that cutlets would taste good if they were cooked à la Lagardere; that
coats à la Lagardere would make good wearing, and boots à la Lagardere
good walking. I came to the conclusion that Paris was not big enough for
the pair of us, and that Nevers was the man to quit the field. Like Æsop
yonder, I laughed at the secret thrust."