The man drew himself
up by his hands and entered the vestibule."
"After all it is very possible," I said.
"After all what? After all what?" cried Rouletabille.
I begged of him not to be angry; but he was too much irritated to
listen to me and declared, ironically, that he admired the prudent
doubt with which certain people approached the most simple problems,
risking nothing by saying "that is so, or 'that is not so." Their
intelligence would have produced about the same result if nature
had forgotten to furnish their brain-pan with a little grey matter.
As I appeared vexed, my young friend took me by the arm and admitted
that he had not meant that for me; he thought more of me than that.
"If I did not reason as I do in regard to this gravel," he went on,
"I should have to assume a balloon!--My dear fellow, the science
of the aerostation of dirigible balloons is not yet developed enough
for me to consider it and suppose that a murderer would drop from
the clouds! So don't say a thing is possible, when it could not be
otherwise. We know now how the man entered by the window, and we
also know the moment at which he entered,--during the five o'clock
walk of the professor and his daughter.
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