"Dumas, Alexandre - Three Musketeers, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dumas Alexandre)

most knowing and profound remarks respecting the Bearnese pony,
his two auditors laughed even louder than before, and he himself,
though contrary to his custom, allowed a pale smile (if I may
allowed to use such an expression) to stray over his countenance.
This time there could be no doubt; d'Artagnan was really
insulted. Full, then, of this conviction, he pulled his cap down
over his eyes, and endeavoring to copy some of the court airs he
had picked up in Gascony among young traveling nobles, he
advanced with one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other
resting on his hip. Unfortunately, as he advanced, his anger
increased at every step; and instead of the proper and lofty
speech he had prepared as a prelude to his challenge, he found
nothing at the tip of his tongue but a gross personality, which
he accompanied with a furious gesture.

"I say, sir, you sir, who are hiding yourself behind that
shutter--yes, you, sir, tell me what you are laughing at, and we
will laugh together!"

The gentleman raised his eyes slowly from the nag to his
cavalier, as if he required some time to ascertain whether it
could be to him that such strange reproaches were addressed;
then, when he could not possibly entertain any doubt of the
matter, his eyebrows slightly bent, and with an accent of irony
and insolence impossible to be described, he replied to
d'Artagnan, "I was not speaking to you, sir."

"But I am speaking to you!" replied the young man, additionally
exasperated with this mixture of insolence and good manners, of
politeness and scorn.

The stranger looked at him again with a slight smile, and
retiring from the window, came out of the hostelry with a slow
step, and placed himself before the horse, within two paces of
d'Artagnan. His quiet manner and the ironical expression of his
countenance redoubled the mirth of the persons with whom he had
been talking, and who still remained at the window.

D'Artagnan, seeing him approach, drew his sword a foot out of the
scabbard.

"This horse is decidedly, or rather has been in his youth, a
buttercup," resumed the stranger, continuing the remarks he had
begun, and addressing himself to his auditors at the window,
without paying the least attention to the exasperation of
d'Artagnan, who, however placed himself between him and them.
"It is a color very well known in botany, but till the present
time very rare among horses."

"There are people who laugh at the horse that would not dare to