--"

"And you have only waited for an opportunity of retracting your words?"

"Sire!"

"You hesitate, it seems."

"I do not understand what your majesty did me the honor to say to me."

Louis's brow became cloudy.

"Have the goodness to excuse me, sire; my understanding is particularly
thick; things do not penetrate it without difficulty; but it is true,
when once they get in, they remain there."

"Yes, yes; you appear to have a memory."

"Almost as good a one as your majesty's."

"Then give me quickly one solution. My time is valuable. What have you
been doing since your discharge?"

"Making my fortune, sire."

"The expression is crude, Monsieur d'Artagnan."

"Your majesty takes it in bad part, certainly. I entertain nothing but
the profoundest respect for the king; and if I have been impolite, which
might be excused by my long sojourn in camps and barracks, your majesty
is too much above me to be offended at a word that innocently escapes
from a soldier."

"In fact, I know you performed a brilliant action in England, monsieur.
I only regret that you have broken your promise."

"I!" cried D'Artagnan.

"Doubtless. You engaged your word not to serve any other prince on
quitting my service. Now it was for King Charles II. that you undertook
the marvelous carrying off of M. Monk."

"Pardon me, sire, it was for myself."

"And did you succeed?"

"Like the captains of the fifteenth century, coups-de-main and
adventures."

"What do you call succeeding?--a fortune?"

"A hundred thousand crowns, sire, which I now possess--that is, in one
week three times as much money as I ever had in fifty years."

"It is a handsome sum. But you are ambitious, I perceive."

"I, sire? The quarter of that would be a treasure; and I swear to you I
have no thought of augmenting it."

"What! you contemplate remaining idle?"

"Yes, sire."

"You mean to drop the sword?"

"That I have already done."

"Impossible, Monsieur d'Artagnan," said Louis, firmly.

"But, sire----"

"Well?"

"And why, sire?"

"Because it is my wish you should not!" said the young prince, in a
voice so stern and imperious that D'Artagnan evinced surprise and even
uneasiness.

"Will your majesty allow me one word of reply?" said he.

"Speak."

"I formed that resolution when I was poor and destitute."

"So be it. Go on."

"Now, when by my energy I have acquired a comfortable means of
subsistence, would your majesty despoil me of my