door. Then Fouquet pushed a bolt which displaced a panel that walled
up the entrance, and prevented everything that passed in this apartment
from being either seen or heard. But, against all probability, it was
only for the sake of shutting himself up that Fouquet shut himself up
thus, for he went straight to a bureau, seated himself at it, opened
the portfolio, and began to make a choice amongst the enormous mass
of papers it contained. It was not more than ten minutes after he had
entered, and taken all the precautions we have described, when the
repeated noise of several slight equal knocks struck his ear, and
appeared to fix his utmost attention. Fouquet raised his head, turned
his ear, and listened.

The strokes continued. Then the worker arose with a slight movement of
impatience and walked straight up to a glass behind which the blows were
struck by a hand, or by some invisible mechanism. It was a large glass
let into a panel. Three other glasses, exactly similar to it, completed
the symmetry of the apartment. Nothing distinguished that one from the
others. Without doubt, these reiterated knocks were a signal; for, at
the moment Fouquet approached the glass listening, the same noise was
renewed, and in the same measure. "Oh! oh!" murmured the _intendant_,
with surprise, "who is yonder? I did not expect anybody to-day." And
without doubt, to respond to the signal, he pulled out a gilded nail
near the glass, and shook it thrice. Then returning to his place, and
seating himself again, "_Ma foi!_ let them wait," said he. And plunging
again into the ocean of papers unrolled before him, he appeared to think
of nothing now but work. In fact, with incredible rapidity and marvelous
lucidity, Fouquet deciphered the largest papers and most complicated
writings, correcting them, annotating them with a pen moved as if by
a fever, and the work melting under his hands, signatures, figures,
references, became multiplied as if ten clerks--that is to say, a
hundred fingers and ten brains had performed the duties, instead of
the five fingers and single brain of this man. From time to time, only,
Fouquet, absorbed by his work, raised his head to cast a furtive glance
upon a clock placed before him. The reason of this was, Fouquet set
himself a task, and when this task was once set, in one hour's work
he, by himself, did what another would not have accomplished in a day;
always certain, consequently, provided he was not disturbed, of