But the latter had foreseen this stroke, and placed his boot between the door and the door-case, so that the lock did not catch, and the clerk was still nose to nose with his interlocutor.

This made him change his tone, and say, with terrified politeness, "If monsieur wishes to speak to M.le surintendant, he must go to the ante-chambers; these are the offices, where monseigneur never comes." "Oh! very well! Where are they ?" replied D'Artagnan.
"On the other side of the court," said the clerk, delighted to be free.
D'Artagnan crossed the court, and fell in with a crowd of servants.
"Monseigneur sees nobody at this hour," he was answered by a fellow carrying a vermeil dish, in which were three pheasants and twelve quails.
"Tell him," said the captain, laying hold of the servant by the end of his dish, "that I am M.d'Artagnan, captain of his majesty's musketeers." The fellow uttered a cry of surprise, and disappeared; D'Artagnan following him slowly.

He arrived just in time to meet M.Pelisson in the ante-chamber: the latter, a little pale, came hastily out of the dining-room to learn what was the matter.

D'Artagnan smiled.
"There is nothing unpleasant, Monsieur Pelisson; only a little order to receive the money for." "Ah!" said Fouquet's friend, breathing more freely; and he took the captain by the hand, and, dragging him behind him, led him into the dining-room, where a number of friends surrounded the surintendant, placed in the center, and buried in the cushions of a _fauteuil_.

There were assembled all the Epicureans who so lately at Vaux had done the honors of the mansion of wit and money in aid of M.Fouquet.