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new tableau! Form group _ΰ la Jardin Mabille!_ Presto! Change!"
In an instant, our travellers, changing attitudes, formed the new group
with tolerable success. Even Barbican, who had been to Paris in his
youth, yielding for a moment to the humor of the thing, acted the _naif
Anglais_ to the life. The Captain was frisky enough to remind you of a
middle-aged Frenchman from the provinces, on a hasty visit to the
capital for a few days' fun. Ardan was in raptures.
"Oh! if Raphael could only see us!" he exclaimed in a kind of ecstasy.
"He would paint such a picture as would throw all his other masterpieces
in the shade!"
"Knock spots out of the best of them by fifty per cent!" cried the
Captain, gesticulating well enough _ΰ l'ιtudiant_, but rather mixing his
metaphors.
[Illustration: A GROUP _A LA JARDIN MABILLE_.]
"He should be pretty quick in getting through the job," observed
Barbican, the first as usual to recover tranquillity. "As soon as the
Projectile will have passed the neutral point--in half an hour at
longest--lunar attraction will draw us to the Moon."
"We shall have to crawl on the ceiling then like flies," said Ardan.
"Not at all," said the Captain; "the Projectile, having its centre of
gravity very low, will turn upside down by degrees."
"Upside down!" cried Ardan. "That will be a nice mess! everything
higgledy-piggledy!"
"No danger, friend Michael," said M'Nicholl; "there shall be no disorder
whatever; nothing will quit its place; the movement of the Projectile
will be effected by such slow degrees as to be imperceptible."
"Yes," added Barbican, "as soon as we shall have passed the neutral
point, the base of the Projectile, its heaviest part, will swing around
gradually until it faces the Moon. Before this phenomenon, however, can
take place, we must of course cross the line."
"Cross the line!" cried the Frenchman; "then let us imitate the sailors
when they do the same thing in the Atlantic Ocean! Splice the main
brace!"
A slight effort carried him sailing over to the side of the Projectile.
Opening a cupboard and taking out a bottle and a few glasses, he placed
them on a tray. Then setting the tray itself in the air as on a table in
front of his companions, he filled the glasses, passed them around, and,
in a lively speech interrupted with many a joyous hurrah, congratulated
his companions on their glorious achievement in being the first that
ever crossed the lunar line.
This counteracting influence of the attractions lasted nearly an hour.
By that time the travellers could keep themselves on the floor without
much effort. Barbican also made his companions remark that the conical
point of the Projectile diverged a little from the direct line to the
Moon, while by an inverse movement, as they could notice through the
window of the floor, the base was gradually turning away from the Earth.
The Lunar attraction was evidently getting the better of the
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