It was with some such tract that Lenny was seasoning his crusts and his radishes, when Riccabocca, bending his long dark face over the student's shoulder, said abruptly,-- "Diavolo, my friend! what on earth have you got there?
Just let me look at it, will you ?" Leonard rose respectfully, and coloured deeply as he surrendered the tract to Riccabocca.
The wise man read the first page attentively, the second more cursorily, and only ran his eye over the rest.

He had gone through too vast a range of problems political, not to have passed over that venerable Pons Asinorum of Socialism, on which Fouriers and Saint-Simons sit straddling, and cry aloud that they have arrived at the last boundary of knowledge! "All this is as old as the hills," quoth Riccabocca, irreverently; "but the hills stand still, and this--there it goes!" and the sage pointed to a cloud emitted from his pipe.

"Did you ever read Sir David Brewster on Optical Delusions?
No! Well, I'll lend it to you.

You will find therein a story of a lady who always saw a black cat on her hearth-rug.

The black cat existed only in her fancy, but the hallucination was natural and reasonable,--eh, what do you think ?" "Why, sir," said Leonard, not catching the Italian's meaning, "I don't exactly see that it was natural and reasonable." "Foolish boy, yes! because black cats are things possible and known.
But who ever saw upon earth a community of men such as sit on the hearth-rugs of Messrs.