“You are mistaken, monsieur,” cried Brigitte, springing forward and seizing his arm.  “Monsieur Felix is not here.  He will probably come later to a reception we are about to give; but at present he has not arrived.”

“They don’t begin early, your receptions,” said the old man; “it is past eight o’clock.  Well, as Monsieur Felix is coming later, you must allow me to wait for him.  I believe you were eating your dinners; don’t let me disturb you.”

And he went back peaceably to his chair.

“As you permit it, monsieur,” said Brigitte, “we will continue, or, I should say, finish dinner, for we are now at the dessert.  May I offer you anything,—­a glass of champagne and a biscuit?”

“I am very willing, madame,” replied the intruder.  “No one ever refuses champagne, and I am always ready to eat between my meals; but you dine very late.”

A place was made for him at table between Colleville and Mademoiselle Minard, and the former made it his business to fill the glass of his new neighbor, before whom was placed a dish of small cakes.

“Monsieur,” said la Peyrade in a cajoling tone, “you saw how surprised we were to hear you complain of Monsieur Felix Phellion,—­so amiable, so inoffensive a young man.  What has he done to you, that you should feel so angry with him?”

With his mouth full of cakes, which he was engulfing in quantities that made Brigitte uneasy, the professor made a sign that he would soon answer; then, having mistaken his glass and swallowed the contents of Colleville’s, he replied:—­

“You ask what that insolent young man had done to me?  A rascally thing; and not the first, either.  He knows that I cannot abide stars, having very good reason to hate them, as you shall hear:  In 1807, being attached to the Bureau of Longitudes, I was part of the scientific expedition sent to Spain, under the direction of my friend and colleague, Jean-Baptiste Biot, to determine the arc of the terrestrial meridian from Barcelona to the Balearic isles.  I was just in the act of observing a star (perhaps the very one my rascally pupil has discovered), when suddenly, war having broken out between France and Spain, the peasants, seeing me perched with a telescope on Monte Galazzo, took it into their heads that I was making signals to the enemy.  A mob of savages broke my instruments, and talked of stringing me up.  They were just going to do it, when the captain of a vessel took me prisoner and thrust me into the citadel of Belver, where I spent three years in the harshest captivity.  Since them, as you may well believe, I loathe the whole celestial system; though I was, without knowing it, the first to observe the famous comet of 1811; but I should have taken care not to say a word about it if it had not been for Monsieur Flauguergues, who announced it.  Like all my pupils, Phellion knows my aversion to stars, and he knew very well the worst trick he could play me would be to saddle one on my back; and that deputation that came to play the farce of congratulating me was mighty lucky not to find me at home, for if they had, I can assure those gentlemen of the Academy, they would have had a hot reception.”