_Noirtier_ (_with senile chuckle_). Ah! youth will always have its little jest. My _number's_ Seventy-seven: my age is more! In point of fact, I've lately turned five score: Time travels on with step that's swift, though stealthy. _Dantès_ (_aside_). A hundred years of age! This prison's healthy, To judge by this old joker. (_aloud_) What's your name, sir? To which I'd add--and what's your little game, sir? _Noirtier._ My name is Faria--I'm a ruined Abbé-- All through my country's conduct, which was shabby. They've kept me here since I was three years old, Because I wouldn't tell of untold gold-- Of countless coin and gems and heaps of treasure Which I'd discovered in my baby leisure-- (_chuckles_) But we will foil their schemes, and that ere long. _Dantès_ (_aside, touching forehead significantly_). The reverend gentleman has gone quite wrong. _Noirtier_ (_clutching Dantès wildly_). But, ah, they starve me! Hence thy strange misgiving-- For what's a parson, boy, without his living? Hast e'er a bone to give an old man squalid? _Dantès._ Not me! They never give us nothing solid; They seem to think an appetite's unlawful: In fact, their bill of fare is fairly awful. _Noirtier._ But now to business! You must know, fair youth, Though I in prison lie, I love the truth. Therefore---- But stay (_glancing suspiciously around_)--are we alone? _Dantès._ Of course we are, old guy fox! (_business_). _Noirtier._ Then now I will confess my little game. (_Removes wig, beard, rags, etc., and appears in convict dress, with [77] conspicuously marked on breast._) And so, behold! _Dantès._ What! Noirtier? _Noirtier._ The same! Here, again, is the duet sung by the same characters in the course of the same scene:-- I. _Dantès._ Here in this gloomy old Château d'If We don't get beer, and we don't get beef. _Noirtier._ They never give us mutton or veal or pork, On which to exercise knife and fork. _Dantès._ No nice spring chicken, or boiled or roast-- No ham-and-eggs, and no snipe-on-toast! _Noirtier._ So no wonder we're rapidly growing lean On the grub served up from the prison cuisine. (_With treadmill business_.) _Both._ Poor prisoners we! Poor prisoners we! With skilly for breakfast and dinner and tea, And such dismal diet does not agree _Noirtier._ With Seventy-seven! _Dantès._ And Ninety-three! (_Grotesque pas de deux_.) II. _Dantès._ Our wardrobe has long since run to seed, For _ci-devant_ swells we are sights indeed! _Noirtier._ I shiver and shake, and the creeps I've got-- I'd give the world for a "whiskey hot!" _Dantès._ And as in my lonely cell I lie, I think of _her_ and the by-and-by.