“Because I might be able to find you again, and, who knows what other good fortune?” He made a sign to Menneville, who listened to all he said with a composed air. “Menneville,” said he, “come with me. Adieu my brave fellows! I need not warn you to be discreet.” Menneville followed him, whilst the salutations of the auxiliaries were mingled with the sweet sound of the money clinking in their pockets. “Menneville,” said D’Artagnan, when they were once in the street, “you were not my dupe; beware of being so. You did not appear to me to have any fear of the gibbets of Monk, or the Bastile of his majesty, King Louis XIV., but you will do me the favor of being afraid of me. Then listen at the smallest word that shall escape you, I will kill you as I would a fowl. I have absolution from our holy father, the pope, in my pocket.” “I assure you I know absolutely nothing, my dear M. d’Artagnan, and that your words have all been to me so many articles of faith.” “I was quite sure you were an intelligent fellow,” said the musketeer; “I have tried you for a length of time. These fifty gold crowns which I give you above the rest will prove the esteem I have for you. Take them.” “Thanks, Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Menneville. “With that sum you can really become an honest man,” replied D’Artagnan, in the most serious tone possible. “It would be disgraceful for a mind like yours, and a name you no longer dare to bear, to sink forever under the rust of an evil life. Become a gallant man, Menneville, and live for a year upon those hundred gold crowns: it is a good provision; twice the pay of a high officer. In a year come to me, and, Mordioux! I will make something of you.” Menneville swore, as his comrades had sworn, that he would be as silent as the grave. And yet some one must have spoken; and as, certainly, it was not one of the nine companions, and quite as certainly, it was not Menneville, it must have been D’Artagnan, who, in his quality of a Gascon, had his tongue very near to his lips. For, in short, if it were not he, who could it be? And how can it be explained that the secret of the deal coffer pierced with holes should come to our knowledge, and in so complete a fashion that we have, as has been seen, related the history of it in all its most minute details; details which, besides, throw a light as new as unexpected upon all that portion of the history of England which has been left, up to the present day, completely in darkness by the historian of our neighbors? CHAPTER 38. In which it is seen that the French Grocer had already been established in the Seventeenth Century