“I begin to think you are, sire.”
“Then, monsieur, you will resume your functions. Your company is quite disorganized since your departure and the men go about drinking and rioting in the cabarets where they fight, in spite of my edicts, and those of my father. You will reorganize the service as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sire.”
“You will not again quit my person.”
“Very well, sire.”
“You will march with me to the army, you will encamp round my tent.”
“Then, sire,” said D’Artagnan, “if it is only to impose upon me a service like that, your majesty need not give me twenty thousand livres a year. I shall not earn them.”
“I desire that you shall keep open house; I desire that you should keep a liberal table; I desire that my captain of musketeers should be a personage.”
“And I,” said D’Artagnan, bluntly; “I do not like easily found money; I like money won! Your majesty gives me an idle trade, which the first comer would perform for four thousand livres.”
Louis XIV. began to laugh. “You are a true Gascon, Monsieur d’Artagnan; you will draw my heart’s secret from me.”