D'Artagnan, the King Maker — page 233: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

220 A Talk Over Sword Blades. titled to know, you must not be offended if ” chang- ing his accent from jesting to severity, “I bid you go your way!” “IT am not offended; and you should not be so, if I an- swer: I shall do nothing of the sort unless that lady’s way is also mine!” “Offended? I, offended!’ repeated D’Artagnan, coldly. “Ata gentleman asserting his privilege? Only, it is my habit—perchance because my tutor, my own father, was a gentleman of the old school—my habit, when I am followed too closely, to use an expedient with which I have always freed myself of a burr ‘e ‘May I inquire, that I may use it at another time?’ “Certainly; only there has so far been no other time for the practice of the secret. I merely walk to the house fronts, gently thrust the person on my arm into the first open door 4: The man with the parcel, who had been so uncere- monious with M. Porthos, had skirted the house walls. On arriving at a door behind the disputants on etiquette, whom he did not heed in his own abstraction and desire for privacy, he drew a key from his girdle and with it opened a heavy oaken panel. ‘To his amazement, while he was stooping to pick up his inseparable parcel, Donna Jacinta, releasing her defender’s arm, glided past the citizen; and, as she turned and stopped in the passage, blocked his entrance. Over his astonished face, she smiled her thanks on D’Artagnan, who thought those teeth were rows of pearls, finer than those which his Queen Anna prized above all princesses. “And,” continued he, sharply turning round after this fleeting glance, “barring the way she went, I say to the pest—a little chapfallen, no doubt: “<Sir, if you have need of information or instruction upon deportment as regards ladies and their warders, dis- pose of me since | am ready to give either.’ ”’ “Sooth, sir, I am wistful to plunge into this well of knowledge! i “Oh, you choose the lesson! Well, stand where you are five seconds and the lesson will have made its mark!” The next instant the swords were anew intergliding Gomicbooks..com