He carries his purse-strings in a knot which it would break his heart to unfasten.

But there! some day my Lord Cardinal will go to heaven--to the lap of Abraham.

I shall be rich then, vastly rich, and I shall bid you to a banquet worthy of your most noble blood.

The Cardinal's health--perdition have him for the niggardliest rogue unhung!" I pushed back my chair and rose.

The conversation was taking a turn that was too unhealthy to be pursued within the walls of the Palais Mazarin, where there existed, albeit the law books made no reference to it, the heinous crime of lese-Eminence--a crime for which more men had been broken than it pleases me to dwell on.
"Your table, Master Andrea, needs no apology," I answered carelessly.
"Your wine, for instance, is beyond praise." "Ah, yes! The wine! But, ciel! Monsieur," he ejaculated, for a moment opening wide his heavy eyelids, "do you believe 't was Mazarin provided it?
Pooh! 'T was a present made me by M.de la Motte, who seeks my interest with my Lord Cardinal to obtain for him an appointment in his Eminence's household, and thus thinks to earn my good will.