DELAPINE TRIES HIS HAND AT THE TABLES
"The ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But here or there as strikes the Player goes,
And he that tossed you down into the Field,
He knows about it all—He knows, He knows."
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, verse lxx.
"Where is the professor?" asked Villebois at the breakfast table next morning. "Has anyone seen him?"
As no one had apparently done so, a deputation was agreed upon to go in search of him and bring him down.
Villebois, Payot, Marcel and Riche were selected, and the quartette marched up to his bedroom and knocked.
They found him in his dressing-gown sitting at a table apparently deep in thought. All looked at him in amazement. He seemed transformed and unearthly. His face was ghastly pale with his brilliant eyes fixed and staring, while his fingers were twitching nervously.
"Professor," exclaimed Villebois, "we have come to tell you that breakfast is nearly over, and everyone is wondering what has become of you."
But Delapine made no movement. A roulette wheel stood before him similar to those used in the Casino. Several sheets of paper covered with algebraical equations lay on the table, while at his side was a well-thumbed copy of Vega's Logarithm Tables and Bertrand's and Poincaré's Calcul des Probabilités lay open near it.