teer ran the
financier through.

"Monsieur d'Artagnan," resumed the king, who had not remarked all the
shades of which Mazarin would have missed not one, "this concerns the
farmers of the revenue who have robbed me, whom I am hanging, and whose
death-warrants I am about to sign."

"Oh! oh!" said D'Artagnan, starting.

"What did you say?"

"Oh! nothing, sire. This is no business of mine."

The king had already taken up the pen, and was applying it to the paper.
"Sire," said Colbert in a subdued voice, "I beg to warn your majesty,
that if an example be necessary, there will be difficulty in the
execution of your orders."

"What do you say?" said Louis.

"You must not conceal from yourself," continued Colbert quietly, "that
attacking the farmers-general is attacking the superintendence. The
two unfortunate guilty men in question are the particular friends of
a powerful personage, and the punishment, which otherwise might be
comfortably confined to the Chatelet will doubtless be a signal for
disturbances!"

Louis colored and turned towards D'Artagnan, who took a slight bite at
his mustache, not without a smile of pity for the financier, and for
the king who had to listen to him so long. But Louis seized the pen, and
with a movement so rapid, that his hand shook, he affixed his signature
at the bottom of the two papers presented by Colbert,--then looking the
latter in the face,--"Monsieur Colbert'" said he, "when you speak to
me on business, exclude more frequently the word difficulty from your
reasonings and opinions; as to the word impossibility, never pronounce
it."

Colbert bowed, much humiliated at having to undergo such a lesson before
the musketeer; he was about to go out, but, jealous to repair his check:
"I forgot to announce to your majesty," said he, "that the confiscations
amount to the sum of five millions of livres."

"That's pretty well!" thought D'Artagnan.

"Which makes in my coffers?" said the king.

"Eighteen millions of livres, sire," replied Colbert, bowing.

"Mordioux!" growled D'Artagnan, "that's glorious!"

"Monsieur Colbert," added the king, "you will, if you please, go through
the gallery where M. Lyonne is waiting, and will tell him to bring
hither what he has drawn up--by my order."

"Directly, sire; if your majesty wants me no more this evening?"

"No, monsieur: good-night!" And Colbert went out.

"Now, let us return to our affair, M. d'Artagnan," said the king, as
if nothi