"No, thank you; I am not in want of anything. I placed my savings with Planchet, who pays me the interest of them."
"Your savings?"
"Yes, to be sure," said D'Artagnan: "why should I not put by my savings, as well as another, Porthos?"
"Oh, there is no reason why; on the contrary, I always suspected you--that is to say, Aramis always suspected you to have savings. For my own part, d'ye see, I take no concern about the management of my household; but I presume the savings of a musketeer must be small."
"No doubt, relative to yourself, Porthos, who are a millionaire; but you shall judge. I had laid by twenty-five thousand livres."
"That's pretty well," said Porthos, with an affable air.
"And," continued D'Artagnan, "on the twenty-eighth of last month I added to it two hundred thousand livres more."
Porthos opened his large eyes, which eloquently demanded of the musketeer, "Where the devil did you steal such a sum as that, my dear friend?" "Two hundred thousand livres!" cried he, at length.
"Yes; which, with the twenty-five I had, and twenty thousand I have about me, complete the sum of two hundred and forty-five thousand livres."
"But tell me, whence comes this fortune?"
"I will tell you all about it presently, dear friend; but as you have, in the first place, many things to tell me yourself, let us have my recital in its proper order."
"Bravo!" said Porthos; "then we are both rich. But what can I have to relate to you?"
"You have to relate to me how Aramis came to be named--"
"Ah! bishop of Vannes."
"That's it," said D'Artagnan, "bishop of Vannes. Dear Aramis! do you know how he succeeded so well?"
"Yes, yes; without reckoning that he does not mean to stop there."
"What! do you mean he will not be contented with violet stockings, and that he wants a red hat?"
"Hush! that is promised him."
"Bah! by the king?"
"By somebody more powerful than the king."
"Ah! the devil! Porthos: what incredible things you tell me, my friend!"
"Why incredible? Is there not always somebody in France more powerful than the king?"
"Oh, yes; in the time of King Louis XIII. it was Cardinal Richelieu; in the time of the regency it was Cardinal Mazarin. In the time of Louis XIV. it is M--"