Part 21 (1/2)
”What were those conditions?”
”Treood-will”
”The deuce! so that the one hundred and fifty thousand francs have passed into their hands”
”Precisely so”
”And beyond that?”
”A sum of one hundred and fifty thousand francs, or fifteen thousand pistoles, whichever you please, in three payments”
”Exorbitant”
”Yes, but that is not all”
”What besides?”
”In default of the fulfillentle has been induced to sign that”
”It is monstrous, incredible!”
”Such is the fact, however”
”I do indeed pity you, Baiserant you this pretended favor? It would have been far better to have refused you altogether”
”Certainly, but he was strongly persuaded to do so by my protector”
”Who is he?”
”One of your own friends, indeed; M d'Herblay”
”M d'Herblay! Aramis!”
”Just so; he has been very kind towards ain!”
”Listen! I wished to leave the cardinal's service M d'Herblay spoke on my behalf to Louviere and Tremblay-they objected; I wished to have the appointment very much, for I knehat it could be made to produce; in my distress I confided in M d'Herblay, and he offered to become my surety for the different payments”
”You astound me! Aramis became your surety?”
”Like a nature; Trened their appointments; I have paid every year twenty-five thousand francs to these two gentlemen; on the thirty-first of May, every year, M d'Herblay his me five thousand pistoles to distribute between my crocodiles”
”You owe Aramis one hundred and fifty thousand francs, then?”
”That is the very thing which is the cause of my despair, for I only owe him one hundred thousand”
”I don't quite understand you”
”He came and settled with the vampires only two years To-day, however, is the thirty-first of May, and he has not been yet, and to-morrow, at midday, the payentleain; I shall be stripped of everything; I shall have worked for three years, and given two hundred and fifty thousand francs for nothing, absolutely for nothing at all, dear M d'Artagnan”
”This is very strange,” ine that I may well have wrinkles on my forehead, can you not?”
”Yes, indeed!”
”And you can i I may be as round as a cheese, with a complexion like an apple, and my eyes like coals on fire, I may almost be afraid that I shall not have a cheese or an apple left me to eat, and that my eyes will be left rievous affair”
”I have coet me out of my trouble”
”In ay?”
”You are acquainted with the Abbe d'Herblay, and you know that he is a soentleive me the address of his presbytery, for I have been to Noisy-le-Sec, and he is no longer there”
”I should think not, indeed He is Bishop of Vannes”
”What! Vannes in Bretagne?”
”Yes”
The little et to Vannes from here by midday to-morrow? I am a lost man”
”Your despair quite distresses me”
”Vannes, Vannes!” cried Baisemeaux
”But listen; a bishop is not always a resident M d'Herblay may not possibly be so far away as you fear”
”Pray tell me his address”
”I really don't know it”