) "I presume it is supererogatory to seek
here (eyeing the folds of the garment with a bitter smile) for any
farther evidence of your skill. Indeed, we have had enough. You will
see the necessity, I hope, of quitting Oxford --at all events, of
quitting instantly my chambers."
Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is probable that I
should have resented this galling language by immediate personal
violence, had not my whole attention been at the moment arrested by
a fact of the most startling character. The cloak which I had worn was
of a rare description of fur; how rare, how extravagantly costly, I
shall not venture to say. Its fashion, too, was of my own fantastic
invention; for I was fastidious to an absurd degree of coxcombry, in
matters of this frivolous nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston reached
me that which he had picked up upon the floor, and near the folding
doors of the apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly bordering
upon terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my arm, (where
I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the one presented me
was but its exact counterpart in every, in even the minutest
possible particular.
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