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of that noble Greek had met with confirmation in the late nebular
cosmogony, I felt that you could not avoid casting your eyes upward to
the great nebula in Orion, and I certainly expected that you would do
so. You did look up; and I was now assured that I had correctly followed
your steps. But in that bitter tirade upon Chantilly, which appeared
in yesterday's 'Musée,' the satirist, making some disgraceful
allusions to the cobbler s change of name upon assuming the buskin,
quoted a Latin line about which we have often conversed. I mean the line
Perdidit antiquum litera sonum.
"I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly written
Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this explanation, I
was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It was clear, therefore,
that you would not fail to combine the two ideas of Orion and Chantilly.
That you did combine them I saw by the character of the smile which
passed over your lips. You thought of the poor cobbler's immolation. So
far, you had been stooping in your gait; but now I saw you draw yourself
up to your full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon the
diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted your
meditations to remark that as, in fact, he was a very little
fellow--that Chantilly--he would do better at the Théâtre des
Variétés."
Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of the
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