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What profound reflections it
suggested to their understandings! What vivid emotions it enkindled in
their imaginations! Barbican, desirous of commenting the story of the
journey while still influenced by these inspiring impressions, noted
carefully hour by hour every fact that signalized the beginning of his
enterprise. He wrote out his notes very carefully and systematically,
his round full hand, as business-like as ever, never betraying the
slightest emotion.
The Captain was quite as busy, but in a different way. Pulling out his
tablets, he reviewed his calculations regarding the motion of
projectiles, their velocities, ranges and paths, their retardations and
their accelerations, jotting down the figures with a rapidity wonderful
to behold. Ardan neither wrote nor calculated, but kept up an incessant
fire of small talk, now with Barbican, who hardly ever answered him,
now with M'Nicholl, who never heard him, occasionally with Diana, who
never understood him, but oftenest with himself, because, as he said, he
liked not only to talk to a sensible man but also to hear what a
sensible man had to say. He never stood still for a moment, but kept
"bobbing around" with the effervescent briskness of a bee, at one time
roosting at the top of the ladder, at another peering through the floor
light, now to the right, then to the left, always humming scraps from
the _Opera Bouffe_, but never changing the air. In the small space which
was then a whole world to the travellers, he represented to the life the
animation and loquacity of the French, and I need hardly say he played
his part to perfection.
The eventful day, or, to speak more correctly, the space of twelve hours
which with us forms a day, ended for our travellers with an abundant
supper, exquisitely cooked. It was highly enjoyed.
No incident had yet occurred of a nature calculated to shake their
confidence. Apprehending none therefore, full of hope rather and already
certain of success, they were soon lost in a peaceful slumber, whilst
the Projectile, moving rapidly, though with a velocity uniformly
retarding, still cleaved its way through the pathless regions of the
empyrean.
CHAPTER IV.
A CHAPTER FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS.
No incident worth recording occurred during the night, if night indeed
it could be called. In reality there was now no night or even day in the
Projectile, or rather, strictly speaking, it was always _night_ on the
upper end of the bullet, and always _day_ on the lower. Whenever,
therefore, the words _night_ and _day_ occur in our story, the reader
will readily understand them as referring to those spaces of time that
are so called in our Earthly almanacs, and were so measured by the
travellers' chronometers.
The repose of our friends must indeed have been undisturbed, if absolute
freedom from sound or jar of any kind could secure tranquillity. In
spite of its immense velocity, the Projectile still seemed to be
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