uccio appeared. "Monsieur Bertuccio, you understand that I intend
entertaining company on Saturday at Auteuil." Bertuccio slightly
started. "I shall require your services to see that all be properly
arranged. It is a beautiful house, or at all events may be made so."

"There must be a good deal done before it can deserve that title, your
excellency, for the tapestried hangings are very old."

"Let them all be taken away and changed, then, with the exception of
the sleeping-chamber which is hung with red damask; you will leave
that exactly as it is." Bertuccio bowed. "You will not touch the garden
either; as to the yard, you may do what you please with it; I should
prefer that being altered beyond all recognition."

"I will do everything in my power to carry out your wishes, your
excellency. I should be glad, however, to receive your excellency's
commands concerning the dinner."

"Really, my dear M. Bertuccio," said the count, "since you have been
in Paris, you have become quite nervous, and apparently out of your
element; you no longer seem to understand me."

"But surely your excellency will be so good as to inform me whom you are
expecting to receive?"

"I do not yet know myself, neither is it necessary that you should do
so. 'Lucullus dines with Lucullus,' that is quite sufficient." Bertuccio
bowed, and left the room.

Chapter 55. Major Cavalcanti.

Both the count and Baptistin had told the truth when they announced to
Morcerf the proposed visit of the major, which had served Monte Cristo
as a pretext for declining Albert's invitation. Seven o'clock had just
struck, and M. Bertuccio, according to the command which had been given
him, had two hours before left for Auteuil, when a cab stopped at the
door, and after depositing its occupant at the gate, immediately hurried
away, as if ashamed of its employment. The visitor was about fifty-two
years of age, dressed in one of the green surtouts, ornamented with
black frogs, which have so long maintained their popularity all over
Europe. He wore trousers of blue cloth, boots tolerably clean, but not
of the brightest polish, and a little too thick in the soles, buckskin
gloves, a hat somewhat resembling in shape those usually worn by
the gendarmes, and a black cravat striped with white, which, if the
proprietor had not worn it of his own free will, might have passed for a
halter, so much did it resemble one. Such was the picturesque costume of
the person who ran