And he put his horse into a trot, directing his course
towards Paris. On the fourth day he alighted at Melun as he
had intended.

D'Artagnan was never in the habit of asking any one on the
road for any common information. For these sorts of details,
unless in very serious circumstances, he confided in his
perspicacity, which was so seldom at fault, in his
experience of thirty years, and in a great habit of reading
the physiognomies of houses, as well as those of men. At
Melun, D'Artagnan immediately found the presbytery -- a
charming house, plastered over red brick, with vines
climbing along the gutters, and a cross, in carved stone,
surmounting the ridge of the roof. From the ground-floor of
this house came a noise, or rather a confusion of voices,
like the chirping of young birds when the brood is just
hatched under the down. One of these voices was spelling the
alphabet distinctly. A voice, thick, yet pleasant, at the
same time scolded the talkers and corrected the faults of
the reader. D'Artagnan recognized that voice, and as the
window of the ground-floor was open, he leant down from his
horse under the branches and red fibers of the vine and
cried "Bazin, my dear Bazin! good-day to you."

A short, fat man, with a flat face, a craniun ornamented
with a crown of gray hairs, cut short, in imitation of a
tonsure, and covered with an old black velvet cap, arose as
soon as he heard D'Artagnan -- we ought not to say arose,
but bounded up. In fact, Bazin bounded up, carrying with him