welve horsemen at your heels, then?"

"I am making my round."

"That isn't bad! And so you pick me up in your round, eh?"

"I don't pick you up; I meet with you, and I beg you to come with me."

"Where?"

"To the king."

"Good!" said D'Artagnan, with a bantering air; "the king has nothing to
do at last!"

"For Heaven's sake, captain," said M. de Gesvres, in a low voice to the
musketeer, "do not compromise yourself! these men hear you."

D'Artagnan laughed aloud, and replied, "March! People who are arrested
are placed between the six first guards and the six last."

"But as I do not arrest you," said M. de Gesvres, "you will march behind
with me, if you please."

"Well," said D'Artagnan, "that is very polite, duc, and you are right in
being so; for if ever I had had to make my rounds near your
_chambre-de-ville_, I should have been courteous to you, I assure you,
by the faith of a gentleman! Now, one favor more: what does the king
want with me?"

"Oh, the king is furious!"

"Very well! the king, who has thought it worth while to be furious, may
take the trouble of getting calm again; that is all that. I shan't die
of that, I will swear."

"No, but--"

"But--I shall be sent to keep company with poor M. Fouquet. Mordioux!
That is a gallant man, a worthy man! We shall live very sociably
together, I will be bound."

"Here we are at our place of destination," said the duc. "Captain, for
Heaven's sake be calm with the king!"

"Ah, ah! you are playing the brave man with me, duc!" said D'Artagnan,
throwing one of his defiant glances over De Gesvres. "I have been told
that you are ambitious of uniting your guards with my musketeers. This
strikes me as a capital opportunity."

"I will take devilish good care not to avail myself of it, captain."

"And why not?"

"Oh, for many reasons--in the first place, for this: If I were to
succeed you in the musketeers, after having arrested you--"

"Ah! then, you admit you have arrested me?"

"No, I don't."

"Say, met me, then. So you were saying, _if_ you were to succeed me,
after having arrested me?"

"Your musketeers, at the first exercise with ball cartridges, would all
fire toward me, by mistake."

"Ah! as to that I won't say; for the fellows do love me a little."

Gesvres made D'Artagnan pass in first, and took him straight to the
cabinet where the king was waiting for his captain of the musketeers,
and placed himself behind his colleague in the antecham