“Always.”
“Would it be an indiscretion to ask to see those precious pills?”
continued Beauchamp, hoping to take him at a disadvantage.
“No, monsieur,” returned the count; and he drew from his pocket a
marvellous casket, formed out of a single emerald and closed by a golden
lid which unscrewed and gave passage to a small greenish colored pellet
about the size of a pea. This ball had an acrid and penetrating odor.
There were four or five more in the emerald, which would contain about a
dozen. The casket passed around the table, but it was more to examine
the admirable emerald than to see the pills that it passed from hand to
hand.
“And is it your cook who prepares these pills?” asked Beauchamp.
“Oh, no, monsieur,” replied Monte Cristo; “I do not thus betray my
enjoyments to the
