their breathing was loud, and their lungs heaved like
a smith's bellows; their eyes blazed like burning coals; their voices
sounded as loud and harsh as that of a stump speaker trying to make
himself heard by an inattentive or hostile crowd; their words popped
from their lips like corks from Champagne bottles; their gesticulating
became wilder and in fact more alarming--considering the little room
left in the Projectile for muscular displays of any kind.

But the most extraordinary part of the whole phenomenon was that neither
of them, not even Barbican, had the slightest consciousness of any
strange or unusual ebullition of spirits either on his own part or on
that of the others.

"See here, gentlemen!" said the Captain in a quick imperious manner--the
roughness of his old life on the Mississippi would still break out--"See
here, gentlemen! It seems I'm not to know if we are to return from the
Moon. Well!--Pass that for the present! But there is one thing I _must_
know!"

"Hear! hear the Captain!" cried Barbican, stamping with his foot, like
an excited fencing master. "There is one thing he _must_ know!"

"I want to know what we're going to do when we get there!"

"He wants to know what we're going to do when we get there! A sensible
question! Answer it, Ardan!"

"Answer it yourself, Barbican! You know more about the Moon than I do!
You know more about it than all the Nasmyths that ever lived!"

"I'm blessed if I know anything at all about it!" cried Barbican, with a
joyous laugh. "Ha, ha, ha! The first eastern shore Marylander or any
other simpleton you meet in Baltimore, knows as much about the Moon as
I do! Why we're going there, I can't tell! What we're going to do when
we get there, can't tell either! Ardan knows all about it! He can tell!
He's taking us there!"

"Certainly I can tell! should I have offered to take you there without a
good object in view?" cried Ardan, husky with continual roaring. "Answer
me that!"

"No conundrums!" cried the Captain, in a voice sourer and rougher than
ever; "tell us if you can in plain English, what the demon we have come
here for!"

"I'll tell you if I feel like it," cried Ardan, folding his arms with an
aspect of great dignity; "and I'll not tell you if I don't feel like
it!"

"What's that?" cried Barbican. "You'll not give us an answer when we ask
you a reasonable question?"

"Never!" cried Ardan, with great determination. "I'll never answer a
question reason