does not regret having once deviated from the principles he has so boldly avowed."
"How have I deviated from those principles, monsieur!" asked Monte-Cristo, who could not help looking at Morrel with so much inten sity, that two or three times the young man had been unable to sustain the clear and piercing eye of the count.
"Why, it seems to me," replied Morrel, "that in delivering M. de Morcerf, whom you did not know, you did good to your neighbor and to society."
"Of which he is the brightest ornament," said Beaucharnp, drinking off a glass of champagne.
"Monsieur le Comte," cried Morcerf, "you are at fault in your reasoning you, one of the most formidable logicians I know; and you must see it clearly proved, that instead of being an egotist, you are a philan thropist. Ah! you call yourself Oriental, a Levantine, Maltese, Indian, Chinese, Barbarian; your family name is Monte-Cristo; Sindbad the Sailor is your baptismal appellation, and yet the first day you set foot in Paris you instinctively possess the greatest virtue, or rather the chief defect, of us eccentric Parisians, that is, you assume the vices you have not, and conceal the virtues you possess."
"My dear Vicomte," returned Monte-Cristo, "I do not see, in all I have done, anything that merits, either from you or these gentlemen, the pretended eulogies I have received. You are no stranger to me, for I knew since I had given up two rooms to you since I had invited you to breakfast with me since I had lent you one of my carriages since we had witnessed the Carnival in the Corso together, and since we had also seen, from a window of the Piazza di Popolo, the execution that affected you so much that you nearly fainted. I will appeal to any of these gentlemen, could I leave my guest in the hands of a hideous bandit, as you term him I Besides, you know, I had the idea that you could introduce me into some of the Paris salons when I came to France. You might some time ago have looked upon this resolution as a vague project, but to-day you see it was a reality, and you must submit to it under penalty of breaking your word."
"I will keep it," returned Morcerf; but I fear that you will be much disappointed, accustomed as you are to striking scenery, picturesque events, and fantastic horizons. Amongst us you will not meet with any of those episodes with which your adventurous existence has so familiarized you; our Chimborazo is Montmartre, our Himalaya is Mount Valerien, our Great Desert is the Plain of Grenelle, where they are now boring an Artesian well to water the caravans. We have plenty of thieves, though not so many as is said; but these thieves stand
