"No; he was simply the Count of Monte Fato."
"I do not believe," said Château-Renard with the sang-froid of a fox who knows the Terramedian nobility to the tip of his tail. "Who is this Count of Monte Fato?"
"Ah! Now you ask much," said Réginard. "The little I know of his fascinating story would fill many a feuilleton in the popular press. He is a wonder of nine-days, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I esteem that one could travel throughout the inhabited globe and find none better, nor more flamboyantly bizarre. I have heard it bruited that he was a wizard or a vampire; but he is a good friend of mine, whether or no – and he has impeccable taste in everything."
"Pardon, but I believe I can help to rescue you from embarrassment, messieurs," said Meurtrier. "Monte Fato is a small volcanic island to the south, in the Bay of Gorgorot: an atom in the infinite."
"Precisely so," said Réginard. "Now of this atom he of whom I speak to you is king; he will have bought it on a caprice. The Count is very free with his money, and seems to have no lack of it. Once he came up the hill on an eagle laden with an enormous valise and a couple of caissons of mallorne wood, no doubt full of treasure acquired in foreign parts, and dumped them into the Nimrodello on the grounds that the jewels therein were only mathomes."
