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Rh having had a great prejudice against those of the hairdressers."

"You see," I said, "how wrong you were."

"No, not in general: this is an exception. The women are usually hideous. They have the most impossible complexions: they are always fearfully sallow. There is one of them in my street, three doors from my own house: you would say she was made of—" And he paused a moment for his comparison. "You would say she was made of tallow."

We finished our sweetbreads, and, I think, talked of something else, my companion presently drawing from his pocket and exhibiting with some elation a little purchase in the antiquarian line which he had made that morning. It was a small coffee-cup of the Sèvres manufacture and of the period of Louis XV., very delicately painted over with nosegays and garlands. I was far from being competent in such matters, but Sanguinetti assured me that it bore a certain little earmark which made it a precious acquisition. And he put it back into its little red morocco case, and fell a-musing with his eyes wandering toward the window. He was fond of old gimcracks and knickknacks of every order and epoch, but he had, I knew, a special tenderness for the productions of the baser period of the French monarchy. His collection of snuff-boxes and flowered screens was