"I should like to speak with M. Raphael, sir," said the elderly person
to Jonathan, as he climbed up the steps some way, into a shelter from
the rain.
"To speak with my Lord the Marquis?" the steward cried. "He scarcely
speaks even to me, his foster-father!"
"But I am likewise his foster-father," said the old man. "If your wife
was his foster-mother, I fed him myself with the milk of the Muses. He
is my nursling, my child, carus alumnus! I formed his mind, cultivated
his understanding, developed his genius, and, I venture to say it, to
my own honor and glory. Is he not one of the most remarkable men of
our epoch? He was one of my pupils in two lower forms, and in
rhetoric. I am his professor."
"Ah, sir, then you are M. Porriquet?"
"Exactly, sir, but----"
"Hush! hush!" Jonathan called to two underlings, whose voices broke
the monastic silence that shrouded the house.
"But is the Marquis ill, sir?" the professor continued.
"My dear sir," Jonathan replied, "Heaven only knows what is the matter
with my master. You see, there are not a couple of houses like ours
anywhere in Paris. Do you understand? Not two houses. Faith, that
there are not. My Lord the Marquis had this hotel purchased for him;
it formerly belonged to a duke and a peer of France; then he spent
three hundred thousand francs over furnishing it.
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