The Psyches: the Cases 



give, as the only thing to work upon, a strip of 

 paper free from paste and easy to pick to 

 pieces, in short, a piece of blotting-paper. 



Here again there is no hesitation. The 

 grubs lustily scrape this surface, new to them 

 though it be, and make themselves a paper 

 coat of it. Cadet Roussel, 1 of famous me- 

 mory, had a coat of similar stuff, but much 

 less fine and silky. My paper-clad charges 

 are so well-pleased with their materials that 

 they scorn their native case, when it is after- 

 wards placed at their disposal, and continue 

 to scrape lint from the industrial product. 



Others are given nothing in their tube, but 

 are able to get at the cork that closes the glass 

 dwelling-house. This is enough. The un- 

 draped ones hasten to scrape the cork, to 

 break it into atoms and out of these to make 

 themselves a granulated frock, as faultlessly 

 elegant as though their race had always made 

 use of this material. The novelty of the stuff, 

 employed perhaps for the first time, has made 

 no change in the cut of the coat. 



1 A fictitious character, a sort of dolt, created by some 

 wit in a French regiment quartered in Brabant about 

 the year 1792. Cadet Roussel's entertaining exploits 

 were perpetuated in a contemporary ballad. Trans- 

 lator's Note. 



225 



