"'My children'...."
He stopped again and said:
"'My children'.... He is addressing you."
"For goodness sake, Maître Delarue, do not stop again, I beg you!" exclaimed Dorothy. "All this is thrilling."
"Nevertheless...."
"No, Maître Delarue, comment is useless. We're eager to know, aren't we, comrades?"
The four young men supported her vehemently.
Thereupon the notary resumed his reading, with the hesitation and repetitions imposed by the difficulties of the text:
"'My children,
"'On leaving a meeting of the Academy of the sciences of Paris, to which Monsieur de Fontenelle had had the goodness to invite me, the illustrious author of the "Discourses on the Plurality of Worlds," seized me by the arm and said: