Page:Ten Years Later.djvu/159

Rh TEN" YEAIIS LATER. 147 "Come into the courtyard with me; it's a "beautiful moonlight night; we will walk up and down, arm in arm, under the trees, while you tell me your pitiful tale." He drew the doleful governor into the courtyard, took him by the arm, as he had said, and in his rough, good- humored way, cried: "Out with it; rattle away, Baisemeaux; what have you got to say?" "It's a long story." "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. Monsieur d'Artagnan!" "You surprise me, Baisemeaux; just look at yourself, voiis faites lliomme contrit. 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 thou- sand francs profit you make;" at which remark Baisemeaux stamped on the ground. "Well, well," said D'Artagnan, "I will run up your ac- count for you; you were captain of Monsieur Mazariu's guards; and twelve thousand francs a year would in twelve years amount to one hundred and forty-four thousand francs." "Twelve thousand francs! Are you mad!" cried Baise- meaux; "the old miser gave me no more than six thousand, and the expenses of the post amounted to six thousand five hundred. Monsieur Colbert, who deducted the other six thousand francs, condescended to allow me to take fifty pistoles as a gratification; so that, if it were not for my little estate at Montlezun, which brings me in twelve thou- sand 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 pris- oners, who, on an average, bring you in a thousand francs a year each."