'I see,' he sneered, 'you prevail like the false pig in Aesop.' 'And you fail,' I answered, smiling, 'like the hedgehog in Montaigne.' Need I say that there is no hedgehog in Montaigne?
'Your claptrap comes off,' he said; 'so would your beard.' I had no intelligent answer to this, which was quite true and rather witty.

But I laughed heartily, answered, 'Like the Pantheist's boots,' at random, and turned on my heel with all the honours of victory.

The real Professor was thrown out, but not with violence, though one man tried very patiently to pull off his nose.

He is now, I believe, received everywhere in Europe as a delightful impostor.

His apparent earnestness and anger, you see, make him all the more entertaining." "Well," said Syme, "I can understand your putting on his dirty old beard for a night's practical joke, but I don't understand your never taking it off again." "That is the rest of the story," said the impersonator.