“I will go myself.”

“And I will accompany you,” said the Abbe Fouquet; “I will carry the money bags.”

“No jesting,” said Fouquet, seriously; “let the business be a serious one, if it is to be one at all. But first of all, let us show we are hospitable. Make my apologies, La Fontaine, to M. Vanel, and tell him how distressed I am to have kept him waiting, but that I was not was not aware he was there.”

La Fontaine set off at once, fortunately accompanied by Gourville, for, absorbed in his own calculations, the poet would have mistaken the route, and was hurrying as fast as he could towards the village of Saint-Mande.

Within a quarter of an hour afterwards, M. Vanel was introduced into the superintendent’s