The Count of Monte Cristo

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a question of arithmetic to Cocles, and during twenty years he had
always seen all payments made with such exactitude, that it seemed as
impossible to him that the house should stop payment, as it would to a
miller that the river that had so long turned his mill should cease to
flow.

Nothing had as yet occurred to shake Cocles' belief; the last month's
payment had been made with the most scrupulous exactitude; Cocles had
detected an overbalance of fourteen sous in his cash, and the same
evening he had brought them to M. Morrel, who, with a melancholy smile,
threw them into an almost empty drawer, saying:--

"Thanks, Cocles; you are the pearl of cashiers."

Cocles went away perfectly happy, for this eulogium of M. Morrel,
himself the pearl of the honest men of Marseilles, flattered him more
than a present of fifty crowns. But since the end of the month M. Morrel