“Let’s see! let’s have a look at it!” cried the delighted chemist; “it may, perhaps, be a fresh element.”
“It is simply a piece of the skin of an ass, sir,” said Raphael.
“Sir!” said the illustrious chemist sternly.
“I am not joking,” the Marquis answered, laying the piece of skin before him.
Baron Japhet applied the nervous fibres of his tongue to the skin; he had skill in thus detecting salts, acids, alkalis, and gases. After several experiments, he remarked:
“No taste whatever! Come, we will give it a little fluoric acid to drink.”
Subjected to the influence of this ready solvent of animal tissue, the skin underwent no change whatsoever.
“It is not shagreen at all!” the chemist cried. “We will treat this unknown mystery as a mineral, and try its mettle by dropping it in a crucible where I have at this moment some red potash.”
Japhet went out, and returned almost immediately.
“Allow me to cut away a bit of this strange substance, sir,” he said to Raphael; “it is so extraordinary——”