pot, visit it, and if it possess the advantages desired,
purchase it at once in your own name. The corvette must now, I think, be
on her way to Fecamp, must she not?"

"Certainly, your excellency; I saw her put to sea the same evening we
quitted Marseilles."

"And the yacht."

"Was ordered to remain at Martigues."

"'Tis well. I wish you to write from time to time to the captains in
charge of the two vessels so as to keep them on the alert."

"And the steamboat?"

"She is at Chalons?"

"Yes."

"The same orders for her as for the two sailing vessels."

"Very good."

"When you have purchased the estate I desire, I want constant relays of
horses at ten leagues apart along the northern and southern road."

"Your excellency may depend upon me." The Count made a gesture of
satisfaction, descended the terrace steps, and sprang into his carriage,
which was whirled along swiftly to the banker's house. Danglars was
engaged at that moment, presiding over a railroad committee. But the
meeting was nearly concluded when the name of his visitor was announced.
As the count's title sounded on his ear he rose, and addressing
his colleagues, who were members of one or the other Chamber, he
said,--"Gentlemen, pardon me for leaving you so abruptly; but a most
ridiculous circumstance has occurred, which is this,--Thomson & French,
the Roman bankers, have sent to me a certain person calling himself the
Count of Monte Cristo, and have given him an unlimited credit with me. I
confess this is the drollest thing I have ever met with in the course
of my extensive foreign transactions, and you may readily suppose it has
greatly roused my curiosity. I took the trouble this morning to call
on the pretended count--if he were a real count he wouldn't be so rich.
But, would you believe it, 'He was not receiving.' So the master of
Monte Cristo gives himself airs befitting a great millionaire or a
capricious beauty. I made inquiries, and found that the house in the
Champs Elysees is his own property, and certainly it was very decently
kept up. But," pursued Danglars with one of his sinister smiles, "an
order for unlimited credit calls for something like caution on the part
of the banker to whom that order is given. I am very anxious to see this
man. I suspect a hoax is intended, but the instigators of it little knew
whom they had to deal with. 'They laugh best who laugh last!'"

Having delivered himself of this pompous address, uttered with