ave an order?"

"Who, I? Oh! not at all, my dear Monsieur Colbert."

"But, monsieur, you have an order. And, in the same manner as you give a
sword-thrust, when you are required, I, on my part, pay when an order is
presented to me. Present yours."

"It is useless, my dear Monsieur Colbert," said D'Artagnan, who inwardly
enjoyed this confusion in the ideas of Colbert; "my order is paid."

"Paid, by whom?"

"By monsieur le surintendant."

Colbert grew pale.

"Explain yourself," said he, in a stifled voice--"if you are paid why do
you show me that paper?"

"In consequence of the word of order of which you spoke to me so
ingeniously just now, dear M. Colbert; the king told me to take a
quarter of the pension he is pleased to make me."

"Of me?" said Colbert.

"Not exactly. The king said to me: 'Go to M. Fouquet; the superintendent
will, perhaps, have no money, then you will go and draw it of M.
Colbert.'"

The countenance of M. Colbert brightened for a moment; but it was with
his unfortunate physiognomy as with a stormy sky, sometimes radiant,
sometimes dark as night, according as the lightning gleams or the cloud
passes. "Eh! and was there any money in the superintendent's coffers?"
asked he.

"Why, yes, he could not be badly off for money," replied D'Artagnan--"it
may be believed, since M. Fouquet, instead of paying me a quarter or
five thousand livres----"

"A quarter or five thousand livres!" cried Colbert, struck, as Fouquet
had been, with the generosity of the sum for a soldier's pension, "why,
that would be a pension of twenty thousand livres?"

"Exactly, M. Colbert. Peste! you reckon like old Pythagoras; yes, twenty
thousand livres."

"Ten times the appointment of an intendant of the finances. I beg to
offer you my compliments," said Colbert, with a vicious smile.

"Oh!" said D'Artagnan, "the king apologized for giving me so little;
but he promised to make it more hereafter, when he should be rich; but I
must be gone, having much to do----"

"So, then, notwithstanding the expectation of the king, the
superintendent paid you, did he?"

"In the same manner as, in opposition to the king's expectation, you
refused to pay me."

"I did not refuse, monsieur, I only begged you to wait. And you say that
M. Fouquet paid you your five thousand livres?"

"Yes, as you might have done; but he did even better than that, M.
Colbert."

"And what did he do?"

"He politely counted me down the sum-total,