odrida at Valencia, pilau at Constantinople, karrick in India, and
swallows' nests in China. I eat everywhere, and of everything, only
I eat but little; and to-day, that you reproach me with my want of
appetite, is my day of appetite, for I have not eaten since yesterday
morning."

"What," cried all the guests, "you have not eaten for four and twenty
hours?"

"No," replied the count; "I was forced to go out of my road to obtain
some information near Nimes, so that I was somewhat late, and therefore
I did not choose to stop."

"And you ate in your carriage?" asked Morcerf.

"No, I slept, as I generally do when I am weary without having the
courage to amuse myself, or when I am hungry without feeling inclined to
eat."

"But you can sleep when you please, monsieur?" said Morrel.

"Yes."

"You have a recipe for it?"

"An infallible one."

"That would be invaluable to us in Africa, who have not always any food
to eat, and rarely anything to drink."

"Yes," said Monte Cristo; "but, unfortunately, a recipe excellent for a
man like myself would be very dangerous applied to an army, which might
not awake when it was needed."

"May we inquire what is this recipe?" asked Debray.

"Oh, yes," returned Monte Cristo; "I make no secret of it. It is a
mixture of excellent opium, which I fetched myself from Canton in order
to have it pure, and the best hashish which grows in the East--that is,
between the Tigris and the Euphrates. These two ingredients are mixed
in equal proportions, and formed into pills. Ten minutes after one is
taken, the effect is produced. Ask Baron Franz d'Epinay; I think he
tasted them one day."

"Yes," replied Morcerf, "he said something about it to me."

"But," said Beauchamp, who, as became a journalist, was very
incredulous, "you always carry this drug about you?"

"Always."

"Would it be an indiscretion to ask to see those precious pills?"
continued Beauchamp, hoping to take him at a disadvantage.

"No, monsieur," returned the count; and he drew from his pocket a
marvellous casket, formed out of a single emerald and closed by a golden
lid which unscrewed and gave passage to a small greenish colored pellet
about the size of a pea. This ball had an acrid and penetrating odor.
There were four or five more in the emerald, which would contain about
a dozen. The casket passed around the table, but it was more to examine
the admirable emerald than to see the pills that it passed from hand to