Page:Gaston Leroux--The man with the black feather.djvu/180

158 found him in a frame he thought almost diabolic, he plucked up courage and resolved to learn the meaning of all the strange things he had seen.

"I don't know where I am," he said somewhat plaintively. "But since I see my friend Adolphe and my wife Marceline with you, I feel reassured. I should like very much to know your name."

"My friend, I am called Eliphas de Saint-Elme de Taillebourg de la Nox."

"You 're really called all that?" said Theophrastus, who was beginning to recover his spirits.

The radiant being bowed his head gravely.

"Well, after all, there's nothing very astonishing in that," said Theophrastus. "My name, my real name, my actual family name, is Cartouche; and for a long time everybody has believed that it was a nickname."

"Your name is not Cartouche; it is Theophrastus Longuet," said M. Eliphas de la Nox with gentle firmness.

"The one does not prevent the other," said Theophrastus, who better than anyone else knew what he was talking about, quite logically.

"I beg your pardon," said M. Eliphas de la Nox, with the same gentle firmness. "You