The Count of Monte Cristo

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hundred steps from the inn, of which we have given a brief but faithful
description.

The inn-keeper himself was a man of from forty to fifty-five years of
age, tall, strong, and bony, a perfect specimen of the natives of those
southern latitudes; he had dark, sparkling, and deep-set eyes, hooked
nose, and teeth white as those of a carnivorous animal; his hair, like
his beard, which he wore under his chin, was thick and curly, and in
spite of his age but slightly interspersed with a few silvery threads.
His naturally dark complexion had assumed a still further shade of brown
from the habit the unfortunate man had acquired of stationing himself
from morning till eve at the threshold of his door, on the lookout for
guests who seldom came, yet there he stood, day after day, exposed to
the meridional rays of a burning sun, with no other protection for his
head than a red handkerchief twisted around it, after the manner of
the Spanish muleteers. This man was our old acquaintance, Gaspard
Caderousse. His wife, on the contrary, whose maiden name had been