his art;
the art, that is, of buying "uncertain merchandise," as low as duplicity
can buy of ignorance and want; and of re-selling at as high a price as
credulity will pay to cunning.[76] His unusual astuteness made it really
diverting, when you knew your man, to have dealings with him, otherwise
it was likely to turn out an expensive amusement. Our acquaintance with
him began in the full maturity of his powers, when his mode of
cross-questioning false witnesses who brought him _soi-disant_ antiques
to sell, and his lawyer-like mode of eliciting the truth, were capital.
How he would lie! and what lungs he had to lie with! _immensa cavi
spirant mendacia folles!_ What action! what volubility of tongue! what
anecdotes! and then only to see how he would look a _false_ Augustus in
the face, and discern that wily sovereign from a thousand counterfeits;
or when a sly forger brought him a modern gold coin, carefully coated in
mould--how he knew by _instinct_ that it was an imposture, and would not
condescend to exhume and expose the fraud. Like all knaves, he would
take incredible pains to prove that there was not a more honest man than
himself breathing--and when he considered himself to have quite
established _this_ on his own showing, he would sometimes speak with
"honest indignation" of men who were palpable rogues: assuring you all
the while, that it gave him pain thus to bear testimony against his
neighbour, but then every honest man owed it to his Pope and to the
people to expose Birbonism. On one occasion, when he had a large batch
of _silver Emperors_ for sale, we said we must see about their _prices_
in Mionnet.[77] Upon which, with a look of frightened honesty, he asked
us if "we really knew what we were talking of?" "Perfectly," we replied.
"Well, sir," continued he, "Mionnet was a Frenchman; did _you_ ever know
an honest Frenchman?" "Not as many as we could have wished to know; but
we had known _some_." "We had in that case," he confessed, "the
advantage over him--_he never had!_ As to Mionnet's book, it was
written, at least so thought Rusca, with a frightfully corrupt view,
being published during the French occupancy of Italy, for the joint
benefit of Mr M. and the _Bibliotheque du Roi_. I admit," quoth our
lawyer, "that the French only entertained a natural wish (nay, sir, as
far as the _mood_ was _optative_ merely I commend it as a highly
laudable one) in desiring to have the best monetary collection in
Europe;