"It is quite simple. My mind's eye penetrates every kind of substance where neither light nor "X" rays can find an entrance. But you will agree with me that a thing ceases to be wonderful the moment one learns how it is done." "But tell us how you manage to do it," they both exclaimed. "It is a power which is only vouchsafed to a few," replied Delapine. "I cannot explain it to you, and if I were able to do so perhaps you would be none the wiser. Some day one or other of you may receive the power." "How do you do, Payot?" said Villebois, as the former gentleman entered the room and joined the group. "Eh, what was that I heard about a letter that the professor managed to read without seeing it?" said Payot in a tone of command, as if he were questioning a prisoner at a court martial. "It was merely a note from your comrade's son, Pierre, regretting that he has been suddenly called away on urgent business," and Villebois showed him the letter. "Urgent business! urgent fiddlesticks I should say. And what, pray, is the nature of this urgent business that calls him away at this time of day I should like to know?" As no one ventured to supply that information, the financier cleared his throat and replied for the doctor. "These young men are beginning to assume airs that their fathers would never dream of doing. They have lost all sense of discipline, sir. If I had written a letter like that to my chief when I was a lieutenant in the army I should have been put in the cells--put in the cells, sir; do you hear me?--for fourteen days on bread and water, and by God, sir, I should have deserved it. I must see Pierre, and look into this matter. By the way, Villebois, how is the General getting on?" "Oh, quite as well as can be expected. I sewed the ends of the nerve together some days ago, and he is already out of bed. He should be able to go out soon." CHAPTER X DELAPINE INTERRUPTS A FIGHT Madame Villebois had been brought up in a small country town, and as her parents had always lacked both the energy and the desire to travel a yard beyond Paris or Berck-sur-Mer, these were the only places outside her home that she had ever visited in her life. Of the rest of France she knew practically nothing, and as for England she only had an idea that it was a country of fogs and shopkeepers, where it was perpetually raining.