“My dear La Ramee,” said the duke, “you are the only man to
turn such faultless compliments.”
“No, my lord duke,” replied La Ramee, in the fullness of his
heart; “I say what I think; there is no compliment in what I
say to you —- ”
“Then you are attached to me?” asked the duke.
“To own the truth, I should be inconsolable if you were to
leave Vincennes.”
“A droll way of showing your affliction.” The duke meant to
say “affection.”
“But, my lord,” returned La Ramee, “what would you do if you
got out? Every folly you committed would embroil you with
the court and they would put you into the Bastile, instead
of Vincennes. Now, Monsieur de Chavigny is not amiable, I
allow, but Monsieur du Tremblay is considerably worse.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the duke, who from time to time looked
at the clock, the fingers of which seemed to move with
sickening slowness.
“But what can you expect from the brother of a capuchin
monk, brought up in the school of Cardinal Richelieu? Ah, my
lord, it is a great happiness that the queen, who always
wished you well, had a fancy to send you here, where there’s
a promenade and a tennis court, good air, and a good table.”
“In short,” answered the duke, “if I comprehend you aright,
La Ramee, I am ungrateful for having ever thought of leaving
this place?”
“Oh! my lord duke, ’tis the height of ingratitude; but your
highness has never seriously thought of it?”
“Yes,” returned the duke, “I must confess I sometimes think
of it.”
“Still by one of your forty methods, your highness?”
“Yes, yes, indeed.”
“My lord,” said La Ramee, “now we are quite at our ease and
enjoying ourselves, pray tell me one of those forty ways
invented by your highness.”
“Willingly,” answered the duke, “give me the pie!”
“I am listening,” said La Ramee, leaning back in his
armchair and raising his glass of Madeira to his lips, and
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Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
winking his eye that he might see the sun through the rich
liquid that he was about to taste.
The duke glanced at the clock. In ten minutes it would
strike seven.
Grimaud placed the pie before the duke, who took a knife
with a silver blade to raise the upper crust; but La Ramee,
who was afraid of any harm happening to this fine work of
art, passed his knife, which had an iron blade, to the duke.
“Thank you, La Ramee,” said the prisoner.
“Well, my lord! this famous invention of yours?”
“Must I tell you,” replied the duke, “on what I most reckon
and what I determine to try first?”
“Yes, that’s the thing, my lord!” cried his custodian,
gaily.
“Well, I should hope, in the first instance, to have for
keeper an honest fellow like you.”
“And you have me, my lord. Well?”
“Having, then, a keeper like La Ramee, I should try also to
have introduced to him by some friend or other a man who
would be devoted to me, who would assist me in my flight.”
“Come, come,” said La Ramee, “that’s not a bad idea.”
“Capital, isn’t it? for instance, the former servingman of
some brave gentleman, an enemy himself to Mazarin, as every
gentleman ought to be.”
“Hush! don’t let us talk politics, my lord.”
“Then my keeper would begin to trust this man and to depend
upon him, and I should have news from those without the
prison walls.”
“Ah, yes! but how can the news be brought to you?”
“Nothing easier; in a game of tennis, for example.”
“In a game of tennis?” asked La Ramee, giving more serious
attention to the duke’s words.
“Yes; see, I send a ball into the moat; a man is there who
picks it up; the ball contains a letter. Instead of
returning the ball to me when I call for it from the top of
the wall, he throws me another; that other ball contains a
letter. Thus we have exchanged ideas and no one has seen us
do it.”
“The devil it does! The devil it does!” said La Ramee,
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