progress, so that he might taste the vin de Brie. Was I right?”

“Quite so, monsieur.”

“In that case, then, it was you whom the king called some name or other.”

“What name?”

“I hardly know; but wait a moment — idiot, I think it was — no, no, it was fool or dolt.

Yes; his majesty said that the man who had thought of the vin de Melun was something of the sort.”

D’Artagnan, after this broadside, quietly caressed his mustache; M. Colbert’s large head seemed to become larger and larger than ever. D’Artagnan, seeing how ugly anger made him, did not stop half-way. The orator still went on with his speech, while the king’s