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The count dismounted at the foot of the hill and started to climb it by a little winding path, eighteen inches across. When he reached the top, he was confronted by a hedge on which green fruit had come to replace the pink and white flowers. He soon found the gate into the little garden. It was a small wicket, turning on willow hinges and closed with a nail and a piece of string. He lost no time in discovering how it opened.

He was now in a little garden, twenty feet by twelve, enclosed on one side by the part of the hedge in which was set the ingenious mechanism we called a gate; and, on the other, by the old tower wreathed in ivy and strewn with wallflowers and stocks. Seeing it in this way, wrinkled and bedecked with flowers, like an old woman whose grandchildren have just been celebrating her birthday, it was hard to believe that it could have told many awful tales, if its walls had had a voice as well as the ears that an old proverb attributes to them.

Not the same evening, as he had said, but the following morning, the Count of Monte Cristo left Paris through the gate at Denfert, set off down the Orléans road and drove through the village of Linas without stopping at the telegraph which, at the precise moment when the count went by, was waving its long skeletal arms. Eventually he reached the tower at Montlhéry which, as everyone knows, is situated on the highest point of the plain of that name.

The garden was crossed by a path of red sand, bordered with a boxwood hedge, already several years old and forming a contrast of colours that would have delighted the eye of Delacroix, our modern Rubens. The path turned back on itself to form a figure "8", in such a way as to make a walk of sixty feet in a garden of twenty. Never had Flora, the youthful and smiling goddess honoured by Roman horticulturalists, been worshipped with such pure and meticulous devotion as she was in this little garden. Not one leaf on any of its twenty rosebushes bore a trace of greenfly and not a twig housed a little cluster of those aphids which gnaw and lay waste plants growing in damp soil. This did not mean, however, that it was dry here. On the contrary, the earth as black as soot and the dense foliage of the trees bore witness to a natural humidity, which could always be supplemented by artificial means from a barrel full of stagnant water at one corner of the garden. Here, on the green surface, a frog and a toad had taken up residence, but always on opposite sides of the circle, with their backs turned to one another, owing no doubt to some incompatibility of temperament. There was not a blade of grass on the path and not the shoot of a weed in the flowerbeds. No modish belle would clean and polish the geraniums, cacti and rhododendrons on her china jardinière with as much care as the person, still invisible, who looked after this little patch.

Monte Cristo stopped, after closing the gate by attaching the string to the nail, and looked all about him.

"It would seem," he said, "that the gentleman of the telegraph has at least one full-time gardener, or else is himself passionately fond of gardening."

Suddenly he stumbled over something behind a wheelbarrow full of leaves. The thing in question stood up with an exclamation of surprise, and Monte Cristo was confronted by a man of around fifty who had been collecting strawberries and placing them on vine leaves. There were twelve leaves and almost as many strawberries. As he got up, the man had almost knocked over the fruit, the leaves and a plate.

"Harvest time?" the count asked with a smile.

"Forgive me, Monsieur," the man replied, touching his cap. "I am not up there, I know, but I have only just come down."

"Please do not bother on my account, my friend," said Monte Cristo. "Gather your strawberries while ye may, if there are still any left."

"Ten more," said the man. "I have eleven here and there were twenty-one in all, five more than last year. It is not surprising. The spring was warm this year, and what strawberries need, Monsieur, is heat. This is why, instead of the sixteen I had last year, I have this year, as you can see, eleven that I have already picked, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… Oh, my goodness! I am missing two. They were still here yesterday, Monsieur, I know they were here, I counted them. It must be Mère Simon's son who filched them from me. I saw him lurking around here this morning. Oh, the little devil! Stealing out of someone's garden! Who knows where he will end up?"

"Have no fear, my friend," the count said, with that smile of his which he could make, at will, so benevolent or so fearful and which now expressed only benevolence. "I am not a superior who has come to inspect you, but a mere traveller, driven by curiosity, who even now is beginning to reproach himself for coming and wasting your time."

"I agree," Monte Cristo said. "It's serious, but you must allow for the felon's youth and natural appetite."

"Certainly, but that makes it no less irritating. However, I beg your pardon once more, Monsieur: am I perhaps keeping one of my bosses waiting like this?" And he looked apprehensively at the count's blue coat.

"Oh, my time is not very valuable," the man said with a melancholy smile. "However, it is the government's time and I should not waste it, but I received a signal telling me I could take an hour's rest…" (at this, he cast a glance towards the sundial -- for there was everything in the garden at the tower of Montlhéry, even a sundial) "… and, as you see, I still have ten minutes to go. Moreover, my strawberries were ripe and if I had left them a day longer… Now, truly, Monsieur, would you believe me if I were to say that the dormice eat them?"

"Goodness, no, I should never have believed it," Monte Cristo replied gravely. "They are not good neighbours, dormice, for those who do not eat them, as the Romans did."

"Oh? Did the Romans eat them?" the gardener asked. "Dormice?"

"So Petronius tells us," said the count.

"Really? They can't taste very good, even though people say 'plump as a dormouse'. And it's not surprising that they are fat, since they sleep all day long and only wake up so that they can spend the whole night gnawing. Last year, now, I had four apricots and they took one from me. I also had a nectarine, just one, though admittedly it's a rare fruit. Well, sir, they ate half of it, on the side nearest the wall -- a superb nectarine, with an excellent flavour. I have never eaten a better."

"You did eat it, then?" Monte Cristo asked.

"The half that remained, you understand. Delicious. Those little robbers don't choose the worst morsels, any more than MèreSimon's son chooses the worst strawberries. Huh! But don't worry," the gardener continued, "this is the last time it will happen, even if I have to stay awake all night guarding them when they are nearly ripe."

"Did Monsieur come to look at the telegraph?"

Monte Cristo had seen enough. Every man has a passion gnawing away at the bottom of his heart, just as every fruit has its worm. The passion of the telegraph man was gardening. He began to break off the vine-leaves that were hiding the bunches of grapes from the sun and immediately won the gardener's heart.

"Not at all," said the gardener. "There is no danger, because no one knows or can know what we are saying."

"Because in that way I have no responsibility. I am a machine and nothing more. As long as I work, no one asks anything more from me."

"Yes, provided the rules do not forbid it."

"Indeed we do, Monsieur, and I much prefer that," the telegraph man said, laughing.

"Why do you prefer it?"

"Yes, indeed," said the count. "I have even been told that you repeat signals that you do not understand yourselves."

"Confound it!" Monte Cristo thought to himself. "Can I have fallen by chance on one man who has no ambition? Damnation: that would be too unlucky."

"Does it take a long time to learn telegraphy, Monsieur?" he asked.

"You lead the way."

They went into the tower which was divided into three floors. The ground floor was unfurnished except for some gardening tools leaning against the wall: spades, rakes, watering-cans and so on.

"Not in itself, but the apprenticeship is long."

"Monsieur," the gardener said, glancing at his sundial. "The ten minutes are almost up and I must go back to my post. Would you like to join me?"

"That's hardly anything."

"And how much do you earn?"

The first floor was the man's usual -- or, rather, nocturnal -- home. It contained a few miserable household utensils, a bed, a table, two chairs and an earthenware sink, as well as some plants hanging from the ceiling, which the count understood to be beans and sweet peas, dried in order to preserve the seeds in their pods. They had been labelled with as much care as the work of a master botanist at the Jardin des Plantes.

"A thousand francs, Monsieur."

"But, as you can see, one is housed."

"I beg your pardon, Monsieur?"

"How long have you been here?"

"Days off?"

"When do you have those?"

"And you are…?"

"How long do you have to work to earn a pension?"

"Very interesting," he said. "But in the long run, doesn't this life become rather dull?"

"Yes."

"A hundred écus."

"Those are my holidays. I go down to the garden and plant, cut or prune. In short, time goes by."

They went up to the third floor; this was the telegraph room. Monte Cristo studied each of the two handles which the man used to operate the machine.

"And how much does it amount to?"

"Fifty-five."

Monte Cristo looked around the room and muttered: "As long as one doesn't mind where one lives."

"Ah! Of course."

"Ten years, with five as an apprentice, making fifteen in all."

"When it's foggy."

"Oh! Twenty-five years."

"Oh, yes. At first you get a stiff neck from looking; but after a year or two you get used to that. Then we have rest days and days off."

"Poor creatures!" Monte Cristo murmured.

"I said that it was most curious."

"Please do."

"With a signal that tells the telegraphist to my right that I am ready and at the same time warns the one on my left to get ready in his turn."

"You will see," the man said proudly. "In five minutes, he will start speaking."

"So I have five minutes," thought Monte Cristo. "More time than I need." Then he said aloud: "My dear sir, let me ask you a question."

"What do they say?"

"Never; why should I?"

"'Nothing to report', 'Take an hour off' or 'Good-night'."

"Those ones are always the same."

"Yes, he's asking if I'm ready."

"What is he saying? Is it something you understand?"

"That's perfectly innocuous," said the count. "But, look! Isn't your correspondent starting to move?"

"But there must be some signals addressed to you personally?"

"How do you reply?"

"All this… that you have shown me. But you understand nothing of your signals?"

"Oh, yes, that's right! Thank you, Monsieur."

"Very ingenious," said the count.

"And you have never tried to understand?"

"What?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Tell me, suppose you were unfortunate enough to turn your head away when the telegraphist to your right started operating?"

"How much?"

"Has that happened to you?"

"So what if, instead of a patch twenty feet long, you could have a garden of two acres?"

"Yes, but you only have a tiny garden."

"Very well. Now suppose you were to change something in the signal or to send a different one?"

"Once, Monsieur, once… when I was grafting a rose-bush."

"Not very well; but I can survive."

"Passionately."

"A tenth of your income! That's nice!"

"And then?"

"Then I wouldn't see his signals."

"A hundred francs."

"That's true: the garden is not very large."

"What would happen is that, if I neglected to repeat them, I would be fined."

"And it is full of dormice who eat everything."

"Are you fond of gardening?"

"They are the bane of my life."

"Ah, well…" the telegraphist said.

"I couldn't repeat them."

"And you don't live well on your thousand francs?"

"I should make it into an earthly paradise."

"What would happen?"

"But look, Monsieur, my correspondent to the right has started up."

"Not even for fifteen years' salary? Come, it's worth considering, I think?"

"Monsieur, my correspondent on the right is getting impatient. He is repeating his signals."

"Monsieur, you are frightening me."

"Yours, if you wish."

"It will cost you a hundred francs. So, you see, it is in your interest to take my fifteen banknotes."

"Whose are they?"

"Monsieur, are you trying to tempt me?"

"Three hundred francs?"

"You have distracted me, I'm going to be fined."

"What is it?"

"Yes, a hundred écus, Monsieur. So you understand, I would never do that."

"Mine!" the man cried, in a strangled voice.

"Banknotes!"

"Square ones, fifteen of them."

"For fifteen thousand francs?"

"Yes."

"Please, Monsieur, let me look at my correspondent to the right."

"No, don't look at him. Look at this."

"Exactly! Fifteen thousand francs, you understand?"

"Huh!"

"Let him carry on."

"Do you mean you don't recognize this paper?"

"Undoubtedly! Yours and no one else's."

"That's another matter. I should be dismissed and lose my pension."

"Monsieur, only if I were forced to…"

"And an income of a thousand francs."

"What, then?"

"Repeat these signals."

"What do I have to do?"

"Child's play."

Monte Cristo took a sheet of paper out of his pocket on which there were three ready-prepared signals and numbers showing the order in which they were to be sent.

"Good Lord! Oh, Lord!"

"Nothing very hard."

"I shall still have my job."

"A garden of two acres?"

"Take it, then!" And Monte Cristo forced the ten thousand francs into the telegraphist's hands.

"That is precisely what I intend." He took another packet out of his pocket and said: "Here are ten thousand more francs; with the fifteen thousand you already have, that makes twenty-five thousand. Five thousand is enough to buy a pretty little house and two acres of land; with the remainder, you can have an income of a thousand francs."

"No, you'll lose it, because you are going to send a different signal from the one you receive."

"Let him. Take the notes." And the count put the packet into the telegraphist's hand. "Now," he said, "that's not all. You won't be able to live on fifteen thousand francs."

"But, Monsieur, what are you suggesting?"

"Yes, but…"

"And for this, you will have nectarines and to spare."

"As you see, it will not take long."

This was the telling blow. Feverish, red, pouring with sweat, the man sent the three signals he had been given by the count, despite the wild gesticulations transmitted by the telegraphist to his right, who was quite unable to understand the reason for the alteration and had begun to think that the nectarine man was mad. Meanwhile the man to the left conscientiously transmitted the new signals, which finally made their way to the Ministry of the Interior.

"Yes," said the telegraphist. "But at what price!"

"Listen, my friend," Monte Cristo said. "I do not want your conscience to suffer. So believe me, I swear to you that you have done no harm to anyone and that you have served God's will."

The telegraphist looked at the banknotes, felt them, counted them. He went pale, then red. Finally he hurried into his room to drink a glass of water, but he was unable to reach the sink and fainted among the dry beans.

"Now you are rich," Monte Cristo said.

"Why?"

"Because Don Carlos has escaped from Burgos and returned to Spain."

"Tell him to sell them at any price."

"Yes, indeed he does. Six millions' worth."

"Does your husband have Spanish government bonds?" he asked the baroness.

"How do you know?"

"I have my sources," said Debray, with a shrug of the shoulders.

That evening, you could read in Le Messager: "King Don Carlos has escaped from house arrest in Burgos and has crossed the Catalonian border into Spain. Barcelona has risen to support him."

Five minutes after the telegraphic signal had reached the ministry, Debray harnessed his coupé and hurried round to Danglars'.

The baroness did not need to be told twice. She hastened to tell her husband, and he in turn ran round to his stockbroker and ordered him to sell at any price. When people saw that M. Danglars was selling, Spanish bonds at once began to fall. Danglars lost 500,000 francs, but he liquidated all his stock.

Throughout the evening, everyone was talking about Danglars' foresight in selling his stock, and the speculator's good fortune in losing only 500,000 francs on the deal. Those who had kept their Spanish stock or bought from Danglars decided they were ruined, and spent a very unpleasant night.

"Very well!" Monte Cristo said to Morrel, who was at his house when the news arrived of the odd reversal which had struck Danglars at the Exchange. "I have just paid twenty-five thousand francs for a discovery for which I would willingly have paid a hundred thousand."

"What have you discovered?" Maximilien asked.

"I have just found out how to rescue a gardener from the dormice who are eating his peaches."

The next day, you could read in Le Moniteur: "Yesterday's article in Le Messager announcing Don Carlos' escape and a rebellion in Barcelona was without foundation. King Don Carlos is still in Burgos and the peninsula is entirely tranquil. A telegraphic signal, misread because of the fog, gave rise to this false report."

Spanish stock rose to double its price before the alarm. In actual losses and loss of profits, it meant a million francs to Danglars.