It is almost needless to say that Hoskins van Huysman had donned all his panoply of scientific war, and had armed himself with what he believed his keenest weapons; and that Professor Hartley looked with amused confidence to a veritable battle royal of wits when the lecture was over and the discussion began. The Prince and Phadrig were keenly anticipative, and the latter not a little nervous. A verbatim report of that famous lecture would, of course, be out of place in these pages. If Professor Marmion's words of wonder are not already written in the archives of the Royal Society, no doubt they will be in the fullness of time when the minds of men shall have become prepared to receive them. Here we are mainly concerned with the results which they produced upon his audience. Certain portions may, however, be properly reproduced here. When the decorous murmur of applause which greeted the President's closing sentences had died away, and Franklin Marmion went to the reading-desk and unfolded his notes, there was a tense silence of anticipation, and hundreds of pairs of eyes, which had some of the keenest brains in Europe behind them, were converged upon his spare, erect figure and his refined, clear-cut, somewhat sternly-moulded face. "Mr President, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen," he began, in his quiet, but far-reaching tones. "The somewhat peculiar title which I have chosen for my lecture was not, I hope I need scarcely say, selected with a view of arousing any but that intelligent curiosity which is always characteristic of such a distinguished audience as that which I have the honour of addressing to-night. I chose it after somewhat anxious consideration, because I am aware that the bulk of opinion in the world of science strongly insists upon the finality of the axioms of mathematics, and therefore it was with no little hesitancy that I approached such a subject as this. I am well aware that, in the estimation of most of my learned _confreres_ and fellow-seekers after scientific truth, to suggest those axioms may not embody final and universal truth is, if I may put it so, to lay sacrilegious hands on the Ark of the Scientific Covenant." A low murmur, prelude of the coming storm, ran through the theatre, and Professor van Huysman permitted himself to snort distinctively, for which he was very promptly, though quietly, called to order by his daughter, who was sitting in front of the platform between him and Lord Leighton. Franklin Marmion paused for a moment and smiled ever so faintly. Nitocris looked round at the now eager audience a trifle anxiously, for she had a fairly clear idea of the trouble that might possibly be ahead. Her father went on as quietly as before: "Of course, every one here is aware that the great Napoleon once said that the word 'impossible' was not French. I need not remind such an audience as this that more than one distinguished student and investigator has suggested that it also may not be scientific."