An epicure even on guard duty, Peppino turns jailer-waiter to Danglars, serving him fowl and bread at 100,000 francs a dish and coolly collecting drafts on the banker's own account.
Having tracked and abducted Danglars for Vampa and the Count, Peppino now mounts guard over the captive banker — comfortably, an 'epicure' with his pan of chick-peas and bacon, Villetri grapes, and Orvieto. When the starving Danglars begs for dinner, Peppino, understanding French 'in all its idioms' from Signor Pastrini's house, obliges with mock deference: 'here you can get anything you want, by paying for it.' A half-naked young bandit bears in a fowl on a silver dish; Peppino provides a blunt knife and boxwood fork — then reveals the price: 100,000 francs a dish, fowl or loaf alike, 'a fixed price for all our provisions.'
Unmoved by Danglars's outrage — 'we never joke,' solemn 'as a Quaker' — he explains with cheerful cruelty that the banker's 5,050,000 francs will buy 'fifty fowls... and half a fowl for the 50,000,' and, when Danglars yields, produces pen and paper for a draft at sight on Thomson & French. Pocketing the 4,998-louis draft, he examines it attentively and returns placidly to his peas. The Count's grateful shepherd executes his master's slow, ironic reckoning with the same appetite he brings to his own supper.
A handsome young bandit at ease on guard, an epicure with a pan of peas and bacon, grapes, and a flask of Orvieto between his knees; gracious and smiling as a waiter, then solemn 'as a Quaker' as he names his monstrous prices.
Vampa's bandit and the Count's agent, who as Danglars's jailer-waiter extorts his stolen fortune 100,000 francs at a time in exchange for food.