“That was your intention.”
“I play the banker a little. I buy goods of my needy brethren; I lend money to those who are not ready for their payments.”
“Without usury?”
“Oh! monsieur, in the course of the last week I have had two meetings on the boulevards, on account of the word you have just pronounced.”
“What?”
“You shall see: it concerned a loan. The borrower gives me in pledge some raw sugars, on condition that I should sell if repayment were not made within a fixed period. I lend a thousand livres. He does not pay me and I sell the sugars for thirteen hundred livres. He learns this and claims a hundred crowns. Ma foi! I refused, pretending that I could not sell them for more than nine hundred livres. He accused me of usury. I begged him to repeat that word to me behind the boulevards. He was an old guard, and he came: and I passed your sword through his left thigh.”
“Tu dieu! what a pretty sort of banker you make!” said D’Artagnan.
“For above thirteen per cent. I fight,” replied Planchet; “that is my character.”
“Take only twelve,” said D’Artagnan, “and call the rest premium and brokerage.”
“You are right, monsieur; but to your business.”