POSSESSING ME THOU POSSESSEST EVERYTHING.  YET I
    POSSESS THEE.  SO GOD HAS WILLED IT.  WISH, AND
    THY WISHES SHALL BE ACCOMPLISHED. BUT MEASURE
    THE WISHES ACCORDING TO THY LIFE.  HERE
    IT IS.  I SHALL SHRINK WITH EACH WISH, AND
    SO SHALL THY LIFE, WILT THOU TAKE ME? 
    TAKE ME!  GOD WILL HEAR THEE.  AMEN.

“Is it a joke or a mystery?”

“I do not know,” said the old man.  “I have offered the magic skin to many men.  They laughed at it; but none would take it.  I am like them.  I doubt its power, but will not put it to the test.”

“What!” said 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!”