“You prefer your own lamentations, then; my opinion is, it will be longer than ever. I’ll wager you are making fifty thousand francs out of your pigeons in the Bastile.” “Would to heaven that were the case, M. d’Artagnan.” “You surprise me, Baisemeaux; just look at you, acting the anchorite. I should like to show you your face in a glass, and you would see how plump and florid-looking you are, as fat and round as a cheese, with eyes like lighted coals; and if it were not for that ugly wrinkle you try to cultivate on your forehead, you would hardly look fifty years old, and you are sixty, if I am not mistaken.” “All quite true.” “Of course I knew it was true, as true as the fifty thousand francs profit you make;” at which remark Baisemeaux stamped on the ground. “Well, well,” said D’Artagnan, “I will add up your accounts for you: you were captain of M. Mazarin’s guards; and twelve thousand francs a year would in twelve years amount to one hundred and forty thousand francs.” “Twelve thousand francs! Are you mad?” cried Baisemeaux; “the old miser gave me no more than six thousand, and the expenses of the post amounted to six thousand five hundred francs. M. Colbert, who deducted the other six thousand francs, condescended to allow me to take fifty thousand francs as a gratification; so that, if it were not for my little estate at Montlezun, which brings me in twelve thousand francs a year, I could not have met my engagements.” “Well, then, how about the fifty thousand francs from the Bastile? There, I trust, you are boarded and lodged, and get your six thousand francs salary besides.” “Admitted!” “Whether the year be good or bad, there are fifty prisoners, who, on the average, bring you in a thousand francs a year each.” “I don’t deny it.” “Well, there is at once an income of fifty thousand francs; you have held the post three years, and must have received in that time one hundred and fifty thousand francs.” “You forget one circumstance, dear M. d’Artagnan.” “What is that?” “That while you received your appointment as captain from the king himself, I received mine as governor from Messieurs Tremblay and Louviere.” “Quite right, and Tremblay was not a man to let you have the post for nothing.” “Nor Louviere either: the result was, that I gave seventy-five thousand francs to Tremblay as his share.” “Very agreeable that! and to Louviere?” “The very same.” “Money down?” “No: that would have been impossible. The king did not wish, or rather M. Mazarin did not wish, to have the appearance of removing those two gentlemen, who had sprung from the barricades; he permitted them, therefore, to make certain extravagant conditions for their retirement.” “What were those conditions?” “Tremble... three years’ income for the good-will.” “The deuce! so that the one hundred and fifty thousand francs have passed into their hands.” “Precisely so.” “And beyond that?”