“Your true father?”

“Yes.”

“Not old Cavalcanti?”

“No, for he has gone again; the true one, as you say.”

“And that father is⁠—”

“Well, Caderousse, it is Monte Cristo.”

“Bah!”

“Yes, you understand, that explains all. He cannot acknowledge me openly, it appears, but he does it through M. Cavalcanti, and gives him fifty thousand francs for it.”

“Fifty thousand francs for being your father? I would have done it for half that, for twenty thousand, for fifteen thousand; why did you not think of me, ungrateful man?”