"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."
THE PROFESSOR DISCOURSES ON GAMBLING
"Le hasard n'est rien. Il n'est point de hasard. Nous avons nominè l'effet que nous voyons d'une cause que nous ne voyons pas."
Voltaire, Lettres de Memmius, III.
Chance is nothing. There is no such thing as chance. What we call by that name is the effect which we see of a cause which we do not see.
"C'est le profonde ignorance qui inspire le ton dogmatique."
La Bruyère, Characteres.
"Well, Monsieur Beaupaire, I hope that you are the better for Dr. Villebois's treatment," said Marcel as he shook hands with him in the salon while they were waiting for the dejeuner to be served.