n almost
breathless haste, "but I believe you made a mistake; you intended to
give me a two-franc piece, and see, you gave me a double Napoleon."

"Thank you, my good friend. I see that I have made a trifling mistake,
as you say; but by way of rewarding your honesty I give you another
double Napoleon, that you may drink to my health, and be able to ask
your messmates to join you."

So extreme was the surprise of the sailor, that he was unable even
to thank Edmond, whose receding figure he continued to gaze after in
speechless astonishment. "Some nabob from India," was his comment.

Dantes, meanwhile, went on his way. Each step he trod oppressed his
heart with fresh emotion; his first and most indelible recollections
were there; not a tree, not a street, that he passed but seemed filled
with dear and cherished memories. And thus he proceeded onwards till he
arrived at the end of the Rue de Noailles, from whence a full view of
the Allees de Meillan was obtained. At this spot, so pregnant with fond
and filial remembrances, his heart beat almost to bursting, his knees
tottered under him, a mist floated over his sight, and had he not clung
for support to one of the trees, he would inevitably have fallen to the
ground and been crushed beneath the many vehicles continually passing
there. Recovering himself, however, he wiped the perspiration from his
brows, and stopped not again till he found himself at the door of the
house in which his father had lived.

The nasturtiums and other plants, which his father had delighted to
train before his window, had all disappeared from the upper part of the
house. Leaning against the tree, he gazed thoughtfully for a time at the
upper stories of the shabby little house. Then he advanced to the door,
and asked whether there were any rooms to be let. Though answered in the
negative, he begged so earnestly to be permitted to visit those on
the fifth floor, that, in despite of the oft-repeated assurance of the
concierge that they were occupied, Dantes succeeded in inducing the
man to go up to the tenants, and ask permission for a gentleman to be
allowed to look at them.

The tenants of the humble lodging were a young couple who had been
scarcely married a week; and seeing them, Dantes sighed heavily. Nothing
in the two small chambers forming the apartments remained as it had been
in the time of the elder Dantes; the very paper was different, while the
articles of antiquated furniture with