advertised his austere life and innocent, if somewhat frigid, morality;
he held something of the position of Darwin doubled with the position
of Tolstoy. But he was neither an anarchist nor an antipatriot;
his views on disarmament were moderate and evolutionary--
the Republican Government put considerable confidence in him
as to various chemical improvements. He had lately even discovered
a noiseless explosive, the secret of which the Government was
carefully guarding.

His house stood in a handsome street near the Elysee--
a street which in that strong summer seemed almost as full of foliage
as the park itself; a row of chestnuts shattered the sunshine,
interrupted only in one place where a large cafe ran out into the street.
Almost opposite to this were the white and green blinds of
the great scientist's house, an iron balcony, also painted green,
running along in front of the first-floor windows. Beneath this was
the entrance into a kind of court, gay with shrubs and tiles,
into which the two Frenchmen passed in animated talk.

The door was opened to them by the doctor's old servant, Simon,
who might very well have passed for a doctor himself, having a strict
suit of black, spectacles, grey hair, and a confidential manner.
In fact, he was a far more presentable man of science than his master,
Dr Hirsch, who was a forked radish of a fellow, with just enough
bulb of a head to make his body insignificant. With all the gravity
of a great physician handling a prescription, Simon handed a letter
to M. Armagnac. That gentleman ripped it up with a racial impatience,
and rapidly read the following:

I cannot come down to speak to you. There is a man in this house