The listeners smiled, and nodded significantly to one another, but the speaker only grew more earnest.
"You think I am insane," he said, "but the truth is you are hoodwinked by official stupidity. That man," pointing at Professor Pludder, "who knows me well, and who has had all my proofs laid before him, is either too thick-headed to understand a demonstration or too pig-headed to confess his own error."
"Come, come," interrupted the President sternly, while Professor Pludder flushed very red, "this will not do! Indulge in no personalities here. I have, strained a point in offering to listen to you at all, and I have invited the head of the greatest of our scientific societies to be present, with the hope that here before us all he might convince you of your folly, and thus bring the whole unfortunate affair promptly to an end."
"_He_ convince _me_ !" cried Cosmo Versál disdainfully. "He is incapable of understanding the A, B, C of my work. But let me tell you this, Mr. President--there are men in his own council who are not so blind. I know what occurred at the recent meeting of that council, and I know that the ridiculous announcement put forth in its name to deceive the public was whipped into shape by him, and does not express the real opinion of many of the members."
Professor Pludder's face grew redder than ever.
"Ah," said Cosmo sneeringly, "that hits hard, doesn't it? You want me to name _one_; well, I'll name _three_. What did Professor Alexander Jones and Professor Abel Able say about the existence of watery nebula, and what was the opinion expressed by Professor Jeremiah Moses about the actual approach of one out of the northern sky, and what it could do if it hit the earth? What was the unanimous opinion of the entire council about the correctness of my mathematical work? And what," he continued, approaching Professor Pludder and shaking his finger up at him--"_what have you done with those three dispatches from Iceland, the North Cape, and Kamchatka, which absolutely confirmed my announcement that the nebula was already visible?_"
"Ah," cried Cosmo, catching him up, "_a spy_, hey? Then, you admit it! Mr. President, I beg you to notice that he admits it. Sir, this is a conspiracy to conceal the truth. Great Heaven, the world is on the point of being drowned, and yet the pride of officialism is so strong in this plodder--Pludder--and others of his ilk that they'd sooner take the chance of letting the human race be destroyed than recognize the truth!"