Raphael. "You have never formed a wish all the time you had
it?"

"No!" said the old man. "I have discovered the great secret of human
life. Look! I am a hundred and two years old. Do you know why men die?
Because they use up the energy of life by wishing to do things and doing
them. I am content to know things. My days have been spent wandering
quietly over all the earth in the calm acquisition of knowledge. All
desire, all lust after power are dead within me. So this skin, which I
picked up in India, has never shrunk an inch since it came into my
possession."

"You have never lived!" cried Raphael, turning from the old man, and
seizing the skin. "Yes, I will take you. Now for a test. I am starving.
Set before me a splendid banquet. Let me have as guests all the wildest,
gayest, wittiest minds of young France. And women? Oh, the prettiest,
wickedest women of the town! Wine, wit and women!"

A roar of laughter came from the old man. It resounded in the ears of
Raphael like the laughter of a fiend from hell.

"Do you think my floors are going to open, and tables, waiters, and
guests pop up before your eyes?" he said. "No! Your first wish is mean
and vulgar; but it will be fulfilled in a natural manner. You wanted to
die, eh? Your suicide is only postponed."

Raphael put the skin in his pocket, and abruptly left, saying, "You have
never lived. I wish you knew what love was."

He heard the old man groan strangely, but without listening to his
reproaches he rushed out of the shop, and in the street ran full tilt up
against three young men.

"Brute! Ass! Idiot! Why, it's Raphael!" they cried. "You must come. Talk
about a Roman orgy I We've been all over Paris looking, for you. A
gorgeous feed. And all the girls from the Opera! The ancient Romans
aren't in it."

"One at a time," said Raphael. "Now, Emile, just tell me what are you
all shouting about?"

"Do you know Taillefer, the wealthy banker?" said Emile. "He is founding
a newspaper. All the talent of young France is to be enlisted. You're
invited to the inaugural festival to-night at the Rue Joubert. The
ballot girls of the Opera are coming. Oh, Taillefer's doing the thing in
style!"

Arm linked in arm, the four friends made their way to Taillefer's
mansion, and there, in a large room brilliantly set out, they were
welcomed by all the younger men of note in Paris. For some time Raphael
felt ill at ease. He was surprised by the natural manner in which his
wi