"Why, here of course. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, nothing; but I thought I saw you in my father's wine-cellar."
"In your father's wine-cellar? What on earth gave you that idea?" and the professor's eyes twinkled with mischief. "And pray, what was I doing there?"
"You know well enough," said Pierre, but a glance at the calm face of the professor made him doubtful. He looked scared and began to suspect that he had been under an optical illusion, or else a hallucination of some kind.
"I trust," said Delapine, "that you will take my words of warning to heart which I gave you in the cellar, and please tell your father with my compliments not to go shooting people who have done him no harm, as the bullet sometimes has the curious habit of turning round and striking the firer instead. But you must please excuse me now as I have to prepare my lecture for to-morrow at the Sorbonne. Won't you like to come and hear it? It commences at eleven sharp. No? Well then, au revoir," he said, as he entered his room and shut the door.
"He must be the very devil himself," cried Pierre. "Did you hear what he said, doctor?"
"I did. I was standing behind you all the time, as I came here to tell you that the carriage is ready."
"Well, how in the name of heaven could he know all this? He must have been in the cellar all the time, and yet you say he was here."
"I have already told you so," said Villebois, "Do you doubt my word?"
"Well, I don't know what to think."