The Count of Monte Cristo

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In matters of speculation, however, though "man proposes," "money
disposes." From some such difficulty the newly named street died almost
in birth, and the purchaser of the kitchen-garden, having paid a high
price for it, and being quite unable to find any one willing to take his
bargain off his hands without a considerable loss, yet still clinging
to the belief that at some future day he should obtain a sum for it that
would repay him, not only for his past outlay, but also the interest
upon the capital locked up in his new acquisition, contented himself
with letting the ground temporarily to some market-gardeners, at a
yearly rental of 500 francs. And so, as we have said, the iron gate
leading into the kitchen-garden had been closed up and left to the rust,
which bade fair before long to eat off its hinges, while to prevent the
ignoble glances of the diggers and delvers of the ground from presuming
to sully the aristocratic enclosure belonging to the mansion, the gate
had been boarded up to a height of six feet. True, the planks were not
so closely adjusted but that a hasty peep might be obtained through
their interstices; but the strict decorum and rigid propriety of the