not in the least excited. I yield to
your reasons because they are good ones and because you are a man of
consideration in the community. I sincerely hope, moreover, that you
will not think harshly of an act of zeal which I have been advised to
perform. I am a functionary, Monsieur. Now, what is a functionary? A man
who holds a place. Suppose now that functionaries were to expose
themselves to the loss of their places, what would stand firm in France?
Nothing, Monsieur, absolutely nothing. I have the honor to bid you good
day!"

On the morning of the 15th of August, M. Karl Nibor presented himself at
M. Renault's with Doctor Martont and the committee appointed by the
Biological Society of Paris. As often happens in the rural districts the
first appearance of our illustrious savant was a sort of disappointment.
Mme. Renault expected to see, if not a magician in a velvet robe studded
with gold, at least an old man of extraordinarily grave and impressive
appearance. Karl Nibor is a man of middle height, very fair and very
slight. Possibly he carries a good forty years, but one would not credit
him with more than thirty-five. He wears a moustache and imperial; is
lively, a good conversationist, agreeable and enough of a man of the
world to amuse the ladies. But Clementine did not have the pleasure of
his conversation. Her aunt had taken her to Moret in order to remove her
from the pangs of fear as well as from the intoxications of victory.

CHAPTER X.

HALLELUJAH!

M. Nibor and his colleagues, after the usual compliments, requested to
see the subject. They had no time to lose, as the experiment could
hardly last less than three days. Leon hastened to conduct them to the
laboratory and to open the three boxes containing the Colonel.

They found that the patient presented quite a favorable appearance. M.
Nibor took off his clothes, which tore like tinder from having been too
much dried in Father Meiser's furnace. The body, when naked, was
pronounced entirely free from blemish and in a perfectly healthy
condition. No one would yet have guaranteed success, but every one was
full of hope.

After this preliminary examination, M. Renault put his laboratory at the
service of his guests. He offered them all that he possessed, with a
munificence which was not entirely free from vanity. In case the
employment of electricity should appear necessary, he had a powerful
battery of Leyden jars and forty of Bunsen's elements,