nes is far superior to that
of the very best Moon dog among them!"

"Dogs in the Moon!" sneered M'Nicholl, "I like that!"

"Plenty of dogs!" cried Ardan, "and horses too, and cows, and sheep, and
no end of chickens!"

"A hundred dollars to one there isn't a single chicken within the whole
Lunar realm, not excluding even the invisible side!" cried the Captain,
in an authoritative tone, but never taking his eye off the chronometer.

"I take that bet, my son," coolly replied Ardan, shaking the Captain's
hand by way of ratifying the wager; "and this reminds me, by the way,
Mac, that you have lost three bets already, to the pretty little tune of
six thousand dollars."

"And paid them, too!" cried the captain, monotonously; "ten, thirty-six,
six!"

"Yes, and in a quarter of an hour you will have to pay nine thousand
dollars more; four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and
five thousand because the Projectile will rise more than six miles from
the Earth."

"I have the money ready," answered the Captain, touching his breeches
pocket. "When I lose I pay. Not sooner. Ten, thirty-eight, ten!"

"Captain, you're a man of method, if there ever was one. I think,
however, that you made a mistake in your wagers."

"How so?" asked the Captain listlessly, his eye still on the dial.

"Because, by Jove, if you win there will be no more of you left to take
the money than there will be of Barbican to pay it!"

"Friend Ardan," quietly observed Barbican, "my stakes are deposited in
the _Wall Street Bank_, of New York, with orders to pay them over to the
Captain's heirs, in case the Captain himself should fail to put in an
appearance at the proper time."

"Oh! you rhinoceroses, you pachyderms, you granite men!" cried Ardan,
gasping with surprise; "you machines with iron heads, and iron hearts! I
may admire you, but I'm blessed if I understand you!"

"Ten, forty-two, ten!" repeated M'Nicholl, as mechanically as if it was
the chronometer itself that spoke.

"Four minutes and a half more," said Barbican.

"Oh! four and a half little minutes!" went on Ardan. "Only think of it!
We are shut up in a bullet that lies in the chamber of a cannon nine
hundred feet long. Underneath this bullet is piled a charge of 400
thousand pounds of gun-cotton, equivalent to 1600 thousand pounds of
ordinary gunpowder! And at this very instant our friend Murphy,
chronometer in hand, eye on dial, finger on discharger, is counting the
last s