"No; the cardinal made me invest them in my own name, and gave me a receipt."
"You have the receipt?"
"Of course," said Fouquet, as he quietly rose from his chair and went to his large ebony bureau, inlaid with mother of pearl and gold.
"What I most admire in you," said Aramis, with an air of great satisfaction, "is your memory in the first place, then your self-possession; and, finally, the perfect order which prevails in your administration; you of all men, too, who are by nature a poet."
"Yes," said Fouquet, "I am orderly out of a spirit of idleness, to save myself the trouble of looking after things, and so I know that Mazarin's receipt is in the third drawer under the letter M; I open the drawer, and place my hand upon the very paper I need. In the night, without a light, I could find it."
And with a confident hand he felt the bundle of papers which were piled up in the open drawer. "Nay, more than that," he continued, "I remember the paper as if I saw it; it is thick, somewhat crumpled, with gilt edges; Mazarin had made a blot upon the figure of the date. Ah!" he said, "the paper knows we are talking about it, and that we want it very much, and so it hides itself out of the way."
And as the surintendant looked into the drawer, Aramis rose from his seat.
"This is very singular," said Fouquet.
"Your memory is treacherous, my dear monseigneur; look in another drawer."
Fouquet took out the bundle of papers, and turned them over once more; he then became very pale.