"
Too late Raphael recalled to mind the verbose eloquence and elegant
circumlocutions which in a long professorial career had grown habitual
to his old tutor, and almost regretted that he had admitted him; but
just as he was about to wish to see him safely outside, he promptly
suppressed his secret desire with a stealthy glance at the Magic Skin.
It hung there before him, fastened down upon some white material,
surrounded by a red line accurately traced about its prophetic
outlines. Since that fatal carouse, Raphael had stifled every least
whim, and had lived so as not to cause the slightest movement in the
terrible talisman. The Magic Skin was like a tiger with which he must
live without exciting its ferocity. He bore patiently, therefore, with
the old schoolmaster's prolixity.
Porriquet spent an hour in telling him about the persecutions directed
against him ever since the Revolution of July. The worthy man, having
a liking for strong governments, had expressed the patriotic wish that
grocers should be left to their counters, statesmen to the management
of public business, advocates to the Palais de Justice, and peers of
France to the Luxembourg; but one of the popularity-seeking ministers
of the Citizen King had ousted him from his chair, on an accusation of
Carlism, and the old man now found himself without pension or post,
and with no bread to eat.
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