The Count of Monte Cristo

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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