in a pleading
tone half in earnest. "Come, a good long day, your Honor! A good long
day!"

"The planet that we call the Earth," continued the Captain, as grave as
a judge, "will become uninhabitable to human beings, after a lapse of
400 thousand years from the present time."

"Hurrah!" cried Ardan, much relieved. "_Vive la Science!_ Henceforward,
what miscreant will persist in saying that the Savants are good for
nothing? Proudly pointing to this calculation, can't they exclaim to all
defamers: 'Silence, croakers! Our services are invaluable! Haven't we
insured the Earth for 400 thousand years?' Again I say _vive la
Science!_"

"Ardan," began the Captain with some asperity, "the foundations on
which Science has raised--"

"I'm half converted already," interrupted Ardan in a cheery tone; "I do
really believe that Science is not altogether unmitigated homebogue!
_Vive_--"

--"But what has all this to do with the question under discussion?"
interrupted Barbican, desirous to keep his friends from losing their
tempers in idle disputation.

"True!" said Ardan. "The Chair, thankful for being called to order,
would respectfully remind the house that the question before it is: _Has
the Moon been inhabited?_ Affirmative has been heard. Negative is called
on to reply. Mr. Barbican has the _parole_."

But Mr. Barbican was unwilling just then to enter too deeply into such
an exceedingly difficult subject. "The probabilities," he contented
himself with saying, "would appear to be in favor of the Captain's
speculations. But we must never forget that they _are_
speculations--nothing more. Not the slightest evidence has yet been
produced that the Moon is anything else than 'a dead and useless waste
of extinct volcanoes.' No signs of cities, no signs of buildings, not
even of ruins, none of anything that could be reasonably ascribed to the
labors of intelligent creatures. No sign of change of any kind has been
established. As for the agreement between the Moon's rotation and her
revolution, which compels her to keep the same face constantly turned
towards the Earth, we don't know that it has not existed from the
beginning. As for what is called the effect of volcanic agency upon her
surface, we don't know that her peculiar blistered appearance may not
have been brought about altogether by the bubbling and spitting that
blisters molten iron when cooling and contracting. Some close observers
have even ventured to account for her