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 cranium 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 his little low chair, which the children tried to take away, with
battles more fierce than those of the Greeks endeavoring to recover the
body of Patroclus from the hands of the Trojans. Bazin did more than
bound; he let fall both his alphabet and his ferule. "You!" said he;
"you, Monsieur D'Artagnan?"

"Yes, myself! Where is Aramis - no, M. le Chevalier d'Herblay - no, I am
still mistaken - Monsieur le Vicaire-General?"

"Ah, monsieur," said Bazin, with dignity, "monseigneur is at his diocese."

"What did you say?" said D'Artagnan. Bazin repeated the sentence.

"Ah, ah! but has Aramis a diocese?"

"Yes, monsieur. Why not?"