“See, he is down there, talking politics with that little group of great geniuses.”
“Indeed?” said Monte Cristo; “and so those gentlemen down there are men of great talent. I should not have guessed it. And for what kind of talent are they celebrated? You know there are different sorts.”
“That tall, harsh-looking man is very learned, he discovered, in the neighborhood of Rome, a kind of lizard with a vertebra more than lizards usually have, and he immediately laid his discovery before the Institute. The thing was discussed for a long time, but finally decided in his favor. I can assure you the vertebra made a great noise in the learned world, and the gentleman, who was only a knight of the Legion of Honor, was made an officer.”
“Come,” said Monte Cristo, “this cross seems to me to be wisely awarded. I suppose, had he found another additional vertebra, they would have made him a commander.”
“Very likely,” said Albert.
“And who can that person be who has taken it into his head to wrap himself up in a blue coat embroidered with green?”
“Oh, that coat is not his own idea; it is the Republic’s, which deputed David to devise a uniform for the Academicians.”
“Indeed?” said Monte Cristo; “so this gentleman is an Academician?”
“Within the last week he has been made one of the learned assembly.”
“And what is his especial talent?”
“His talent? I believe he thrusts pins through the heads of rabbits, he makes fowls eat madder, and punches the spinal marrow out of dogs with whalebone.”