This singular man was called Pierdeux (Alcide), and in his way of condensing it—as is the custom of his comrades—he generally signed himself [AP]ierd, or even ^{[AP]}I, without even dotting the i. He was so perfervid in his discussions that he had been named Sulphuric Alcide. Not only was he big, but he was tall. His friends affirmed that his height was exactly the five millionth part of a quarter of the meridian, and they were not far out. Although his head was rather too small for his powerful bust and shoulders, yet he held it well, and piercing were the eyes that looked through his _pince-nez_. He was chiefly distinguished by one of those physiognomies in which gaiety and gravity intermingle, and his hair had been prematurely thinned by the abuse of algebraic signs under the light of the gas-lamps in the study. He was one of the best fellows whose memory lingers at the school. Although his character was independent enough, he was always loyal to the requirements of Code X, which is law among the Polytechnicians in all that concerns comradeship and respect for the uniform. He was equally appreciated under the trees of the court of “Acas,” so named because there are no acacias, as in the “casers,” the dormitories, in which the arrangements of his box, and the order that reigned in his “coffin,” denoted an absolutely methodical mind. That the head of Alcide Pierdeux was a little too small for his body we admit, but that it was filled to the meninges will be believed. Above all things, he was a mathematician like all his comrades are, or have been, but he only used his mathematics in application to experimental science, whose chief attraction to him was that it had much to do with industry. Herein he recognized the inferior side of his nature. No one is perfect. His strong point was the study of those sciences which, notwithstanding their immense progress, have, and always will have, secrets for their followers. Alcide was still a bachelor. He was still “equal to one,” as he phrased it, although he had no objection to become “the half of two.” His friends had had ideas of marrying him to a very charming girl at Martigues. But, unfortunately, she had a father, who responded to the first overtures in the following “martigalade:”— “No, your Alcide is too clever! He talks to my poor girl in a way that is unintelligible to her!” And hence Alcide resolved to take a year’s holiday, and thought he could not employ his time better than in following the North Polar Practical Association in its peculiar undertaking. As soon as he arrived at Baltimore he began to think over the matter seriously. That the Earth would become Jovian by the change of its axis mattered very little to him. But by what means it was to be brought about excited his curiosity, and not without reason. In his picturesque language he said to himself,—