“Ah! ah!” said the Gascon, “this is the gentleman who clipped off the lace from the uniform of the Swiss!  A praiseworthy piece of economy.”

The financier thought to pierce the musketeer; but the musketeer 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 Chatlet, 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 nothing had happened.  “You see that, with respect to money, there is already a notable change.”

“Something to the tune of from zero to eighteen millions,” replied the musketeer gayly.  “Ah! that was what your majesty wanted the day King Charles II. came to Blois.  The two states would not have been embroiled to-day; for I must say, that there also I see another stumbling-block.”