Welcome back, everyone to 1001 Stories for the Road.

This is your host and storyteller, John Haggardorn.

Today, Chapter 46, from the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandra Dumas.

Part 1, Unlimited Credit.

And now our story.

About 2 o'clock the following day, a calash drawn by a pair of magnificent English horses,

stopped at the door of Monte Cristo and a person dressed in a blue coat with buttons of a similar color,

a white waistcoat over which was displayed a massive gold chain, brown trousers, and a quantity

of black hair descending so low over his eyebrows as to leave it doubtful whether it were not

artificial, so little did its jetty glossiness assimilate with the deep wrinkles stamped on his features.

A person, in a word, who, although evidently passed fifty, desired to be taken for not more than

forty, bent forwards from the carriage door, on the panels of which were emblazoned the armorial

bearings of a baron, and directed his groom to inquire at the porter's lodge whether the Count

of Monte Cristo resided there, and if he were within. While waiting, the occupant of the

carriage surveyed the house, the garden as far as he could distinguish it, and the livery of servants

who passed to and fro, with an attention so close as to be somewhat impertinent.

His glance was keen, but showed cunning rather than intelligence. His lips were straight,

and so thin that, as they closed, they were drawn in over the teeth. His cheekbones were

broad and projecting, a never-failing proof of audacity and craftiness, while the

flatness of his forehead and the enlargement of the back of his skull, which rose much higher than his

large and coarsely shaped ears, combined to form of physiognomy anything but prepossessing,

saving the eyes of such is considered that the owner of so splendid an equipage must needs be all that was admirable and enviable.

...