poor devil like me is only too glad to live at any price," replied
Margari, whose answer naturally had no relation whatever to the text,
not a word of which he understood.

"You are a simple fellow, Margari; but go on, go on!"

Margari gaped violently, he would have liked to have stretched himself
too, but he bethought him in time that his coat had already burst
beneath his armpits, and he had no wish to make the rent still larger,
so he let it alone and proceeded with his bitter labour.

By the time Monte Cristo had swum back to dry land, Margari's eyelids
were almost glued to his eyes and still the old gentleman showed no
sign of drowsiness. Mr. John's threat had kept Mr. Demetrius awake all
night, and consequently had kept poor Margari awake too. Once or twice
an unusually interesting episode excited the old man's attention, and
for the time he forgot all about John's duel--for example, when Monte
Cristo discovered the enormous treasure on the island--and he would then
rouse up Margari and make him go and find a map and point out the exact
position of Monte Cristo's island. Margari searched every corner of the
sea for it, and at last looked for it on the dry land also without
finding it. Tiring at length with the fruitless search he proposed, as
the best way out of the difficulty, that he should write on the
afternoon of the following day to Monsieur Alexander Dumas himself to
explain to his honour where the island used to be and whether it still
existed.

"What a blockhead you are," said the old man, "but go on, go on!"

Margari gave a great sigh and looked at the clock on the wall, but,
alas! it was still a long way from six o'clock. At last, however, while
he was still reading, the clock _did_ strike six. Margari instantly
stood up in the middle of a sentence, marked the passage with his
thumb-nail so as to know at what word to begin again on the following
evening, turned down the leaf and closed the book.

"Well! is that the end of it?" enquired Mr. Demetrius in angry
amazement.

"I humbly beg your honour's pardon," said Margari with meek intrepidity,
"there's nothing about reading _after six_ in our agreement"--and off he
went. Mr. Demetrius thereupon flew into a violent rage, cursed and
swore, vowed that he would dismiss his reader on the spot, and as the
morning grew lighter fell into a deep, death-like, narcotic sleep from
which he would not have awakened if the house had come tumbling about
his ears.