Marcel, "as the General not only got us out of a terrible scrape, but was kind enough to drive us here and actually invited us to lunch. In fact he bid us remove the traces of our scrimmage with those beastly gendarmes who tried to arrest us, and then meet him here in the hall." "If he had not been so kind in the first instance," added Riche, "I should have imagined that he was playing us a joke." "But why suggest such things?" said Delapine. "If he said he would wait for you here, he must be here." "Please do not jest like this, professor, it is too serious a thing, we must go and look for him at once." "Are you sure that it is necessary to do that?" said Delapine. "What do you mean?" they both asked. "I mean what I say. The General kept his word, and is waiting on you now." "Where, where?" and Riche and Marcel looked up and down the passages in vain. "Why, here, you silly chaps. Can't you recognise me?" and Delapine gave a merry twinkle with his eyes. "What! You don't mean to say that you were the General?" "Why not?" said the professor, turning his back to them and quickly donning his false beard and moustache and wig. "Now look at me," said he, turning round and saluting them. "If this isn't just the top hole," said Marcel and Riche in a duet. "Whoever would have thought of it, but tell us, how did you manage to know where we were?" "Oh! that was simplicity itself. I watched you both going out, and then I fell into one of those dreamy states in which my subliminal or other-self rises above the threshold--as Meyers used to say--and then this other-self, partly freed from my animal body, has greatly increased powers, which enables me to perceive things which are entirely invisible to the eye, since psychic sight is affected by altogether different laws from those which govern ordinary vision, and moreover it is quite independent of distance. The moment I fell into my hypnotic reverie, I saw Marcel sauntering along the Corniche in the direction of Monaco with my mind sight as clearly as I see you now, and I watched him half kill the Italian with his stick for maltreating a bear, and suspecting what would happen I hurriedly left the hotel, borrowed a General's uniform, pinned on all the second-hand orders I could lay my hands on, and telephoned immediately for the most expensive carriage and pair in the place. At the same time I telephoned to the Metropole at Monte Carlo for two footmen in livery. They climbed up on to the box-seat and I got into the carriage, and the one whom I selected as coachman drove as fast as possible to the spot where I knew I should meet you--and here we are," said the professor with a beaming smile. "Come, gentlemen, let me take you to lunch, as I promised you in the carriage. I think our good friends Beaupaire and Payot, as well as the ladies are expecting us." "Great Scott!" whispered Marcel to Riche, "Mephistopheles is a fool beside our professor." CHAPTER XXIV