The Count of Monte Cristo

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encouraged him. This child, for whom my poor sister would go to the
town, five or six leagues off, to purchase the earliest fruits and
the most tempting sweetmeats, preferred to Palma grapes or Genoese
preserves, the chestnuts stolen from a neighbor's orchard, or the dried
apples in his loft, when he could eat as well of the nuts and apples
that grew in my garden. One day, when Benedetto was about five or six,
our neighbor Vasilio, who, according to the custom of the country, never
locked up his purse or his valuables--for, as your excellency knows,
there are no thieves in Corsica--complained that he had lost a louis
out of his purse; we thought he must have made a mistake in counting
his money, but he persisted in the accuracy of his statement. One day,
Benedetto, who had been gone from the house since morning, to our great
anxiety, did not return until late in the evening, dragging a monkey
after him, which he said he had found chained to the foot of a tree. For
more than a month past, the mischievous child, who knew not what to wish
for, had taken it into his head to have a monkey. A boatman, who had
passed by Rogliano, and who had several of these animals, whose tricks