Monte Cristo turned away; he seemed moved by this last remark.
“Ah,” said he to Debray, who had thrown himself into an easy-chair at the farthest extremity of the salon, and who held a pencil in his right hand and an account book in his left, “what are you doing there? Are you making a sketch after Poussin?”
“Oh, no,” was the tranquil response; “I am too fond of art to attempt anything of that sort. I am doing a little sum in arithmetic.”
“In arithmetic?”
“Yes; I am calculating—by the way, Morcerf, that indirectly concerns you—I am calculating what the house of Danglars must have gained by the last rise in Haiti bonds; from 206 they have risen to 409 in three days, and the prudent banker had purchased at 206; therefore he must have made 300,000 livres.”
“That is not his biggest scoop,” said Morcerf; “did he not make a million in Spaniards this last year?”
“My dear fellow,” said Lucien, “here is the Count of Monte Cristo, who will say to you, as the Italians do—
“ ‘Denaro e santità, Metà della metà.’
“When they tell me such things, I only shrug my shoulders and say nothing.”
“But you were speaking of Haitians?” said Monte Cristo.
“Ah, Haitians—that is quite another thing! Haitians are the écarté of French stock-jobbing. We may like bouillotte, delight in whist, be enraptured with boston, and yet grow tired of them all; but we always come back to écarté—it is not only a game, it is a hors-d’oeuvre! M.