entertaining them.

I was on the subject of my morning's employment. Knowing how easily confidence begets confidence, and that in his position the matter could not be long kept from him, I told him as a secret where I had been.

"I do not wish all the world to know, my friend," I said; "but you are a discreet man, and it will go no farther. I am just from Du Hallot's."

 HE DROPPED HIS NAPKIN. Page 20.

He dropped his napkin and stooped to pick it up again with a gesture so hasty that it caught my attention and led me to watch him. Moreover, although my words seemed to call for an answer, he did not speak until he had taken a deep draught of wine; and then he said only, "Indeed!" in a tone of such indifference as might at another time have deceived me, but now was perfectly patent.

"Yes," I replied, affecting to be engaged with my own plate (we were eating nuts). "Doubtless you will be able to guess on what subject."

"I?" he said, as quick to answer as he had before been slow. "No, I think not."

"La Fin," I said; "and his statements respecting M. de Biron's friends."

"Ah!" he replied, shrugging his shoulders. He had contrived to regain his composure, but I noticed that his hand shook, and I saw him put a nut into his mouth with so much salt upon it that he had no choice but to make a grimace. "They tell me he accuses everybody," he grumbled, his eyes on his plate. "Even the King is scarcely safe from him. But I have heard no particulars."

"They will be known by and by," I answered prudently. And after that I did not think it wise to speak farther, lest I should give more than I got; but as soon as he had finished, and we had washed our hands, I led him to the closet looking on the river, where I was in the habit of working with my secretaries. I sent them away and sat down with him to his accounts; but in the position in which I found myself, between suspicion and perplexity, I could so little command my attention that I gathered nothing from their items; and had I found another doing the King's service as negligently I had certainly sent him about his business. Nevertheless I made some show of auditing them, and had reached the last roll when something in the fairly written summary, which closed the account, caught my eye. I bent more closely over it, and presently making an occasion to carry the parchment into the next room, 

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