“What do you call succeeding? — a fortune?”

“A hundred thousand crowns, sire, which I now possess — that is, in one week three times as much money as I ever had in fifty years.”

“It is a handsome sum. But you are ambitious, I perceive.”

“I, sire? The quarter of that would be a treasure; and I swear to you I have no thought of augmenting it.”

“What! you contemplate remaining idle?”

“Yes, sire.”

“You mean to drop the sword?”

“That I have already done.”

“Impossible, Monsieur d’Artagnan,”