this be the case, unless it be to enjoy the pleasures of my kitchen? It
is really the fact."

Aramis smiled with an expression of incredulity.

"You smile," said Baisemeaux.

"I do," returned Aramis.

"I tell you that we have names which have been inscribed on our books
thrice in the space of two years."

"I must see it before I believe it," said Aramis.

"Well, I can show it to you, although it is prohibited to communicate
the registers to strangers; and if you really wish to see it with your
own eyes----"

"I should be delighted, I confess."

"Very well," said Baisemeaux, and he took out of a cupboard a large
register. Aramis followed him most anxiously with his eyes, and
Baisemeaux returned, placed the register upon the table, and turned over
the leaves for a minute, and stayed at the letter M.

"Look here," said he, "Martinier, January, 1659; Martinier, June, 1660;
Martinier, March, 1661. Mazarinades, etc.; you understand it was only
a pretext; people were not sent to the Bastile for jokes against M.
Mazarin; the fellow denounced himself in order to get imprisoned here."

"And what was his object?"

"None other than to return to my kitchen at three francs a day."

"Three francs--poor devil!"

"The poet, my lord, belongs to the lowest scale, the same style of board
as the small tradesman and bailiff's clerk; but I repeat, it is to those
people only that I give these little surprises."

Aramis mechanically turned over the leaves of the register, continuing
to read the names, but without appearing to take any interest in the
names he read.

"In 1661, you perceive," said Baisemeaux, "eighty entries; and in 1659,
eighty also."

"Ah!" said Aramis. "Seldon; I seem to know that name. Was it not you who
spoke to me about a certain young man?"

"Yes, a poor devil of a student, who made--What do you call that where
two Latin verses rhyme together?"

"A distich."

"Yes; that is it."

"Poor fellow; for a distich."

"Do you know that he made this distich against the Jesuits?"

"That makes no difference; the punishment seems very severe."

"Do not pity him; last year you seemed to interest yourself in him."

"Yes, I did so."

"Well, as your interest is all-powerful here, my lord, I have treated
him since that time as a prisoner at fifteen francs."

"The same as this one, then," said Aramis, who had continued turning
over the leaves, and who had stopped at one of the names which followed
Martinier