The Ambassadors.

D’Artagnan had, with very few exceptions, learned almost all of the particulars of what we have just been relating; for among his friends he reckoned all the useful, serviceable people in the royal household, — officious attendants who were proud of being recognized by the captain of the musketeers, for the captain’s influence was very great; and then, in addition to any ambitious vies they may have imagined he could promote, they were proud of being regarded as worth being spoken to by a man as brave as D’Artagnan.

In this manner D’Artagnan learned every morning what he had not been able either to see or to ascertain the night before, from the simple fact of his not being ubiquitous; so that, with the information he had been able by his own