Excerpt from The Magic SkinToward the close of the month of October, 1829, a young man entered the palais-royal just at the hour when the gambling-houses opened, conformably to the law that protects a passion essentially sus ceptible to taxation. Without overmuch hesitation, he ascended the staircase of the establishment desig nated by the number 36.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.