He interrupted himself as he saw a small pretty duck come up to the surface of the pond.
“There you see the cravatted swan, a poor native of Canada; he has come a very long way to show us his brown and gray plumage and his little black cravat! Look, he is preening himself. That one is the famous eider duck that provides the down, the eider-down under which our fine ladies sleep; isn’t it pretty? Who would not admire the little pinkish white breast and the green beak? I have just been a witness, sir,” he went on, “to a marriage that I had long despaired of bringing about; they have paired rather auspiciously, and I shall await the results very eagerly. This will be a hundred and thirty-eighth species, I flatter myself, to which, perhaps, my name will be given. That is the newly matched pair,” he said, pointing out two of the ducks; “one of them is a laughing goose (anas albifrons), and the other the great whistling duck, Buffon’s anas ruffina. I have hesitated a long while between the whistling duck, the duck with white eyebrows, and the shoveler duck (anas clypeata). Stay, that is the shoveler—that fat, brownish black rascal, with the greenish neck and that coquettish iridescence on it. But the whistling duck was a crested one, sir, and you will understand that I deliberated no longer. We only lack the variegated black-capped duck now. These gentlemen here, unanimously claim that that variety of duck is only a repetition of the curve-beaked teal, but for my own part,”—and the gesture he made was worth seeing. It expressed at once the modesty and pride of a man of science; the pride full of obstinacy, and the modesty well tempered with assurance.
“I don’t think it is,” he added. “You see, my dear sir, that we are not amusing ourselves here. I am engaged at this moment upon a monograph on the genus duck. But I am at your disposal.”
While they went towards a rather pleasant house in the Rue du Buffon, Raphael submitted the skin to M. Lavrille’s inspection.
“I know the product,” said the man of science, when he had turned his magnifying glass upon the talisman. “It used to be used for covering boxes. The shagreen is very old. They prefer to use skate’s skin nowadays for making sheaths. This, as you are doubtless aware, is the hide of the raja sephen, a Red Sea fish.”
“But this, sir, since you are so exceedingly good——”
“This,” the man of science interrupted, as he resumed, “this is quite another thing; between these two shagreens, sir, there is a difference just as wide as between sea and land, or fish and flesh. The fish’s skin is harder, however, than the skin of the land animal. This,” he said, as he indicated the talisman, “is, as you doubtless know, one of the most curious of zoological products.”
“But to proceed——” said Raphael.
“This,” replied the man of science, as he flung himself down into his armchair, “is an ass’ skin, sir.”
“Yes, I know,” said the young man.