We
will proceed, gentlemen, if you please, to weigh Gallia."

Ben Zoof, who had just entered the hall, caught the professor's last
sentence, and without saying a word, went out again and was absent for
some minutes. When he returned, he said, "If you want to weigh this
comet of yours, I suppose you want a pair of scales; but I have been
to look, and I cannot find a pair anywhere. And what's more," he added
mischievously, "you won't get them anywhere."

A frown came over the professor's countenance. Servadac saw it, and gave
his orderly a sign that he should desist entirely from his bantering.

"I require, gentlemen," resumed Rosette, "first of all to know by how
much the weight of a kilogramme here differs from its weight upon the
earth; the attraction, as we have said, being less, the weight will
proportionately be less also."

"Then an ordinary pair of scales, being under the influence of
attraction, I suppose, would not answer your purpose," submitted the
lieutenant.

"And the very kilogramme weight you used would have become lighter," put
in the count, deferentially.

"Pray, gentlemen, do not interrupt me," said the professor,
authoritatively, as if _ex cathedra_. "I need no instruction on these
points."

Procope and Timascheff demurely bowed their heads.

The professor resumed. "Upon a steelyard, or spring-balance, dependent
upon mere tension or flexibility, the attraction will have no influence.
If I suspend a weight equivalent to the weight of a kilogramme, the
index will register the proper weight on the surface of Gallia. Thus
I shall arrive at the difference I want: the difference between the
earth's attraction and the comet's. Will you, therefore, have
the goodness to provide me at once with a steelyard and a tested
kilogramme?"

The audience looked at one another, and then at Ben Zoof, who was
thoroughly acquainted with all their resources. "We have neither one nor
the other," said the orderly.

The professor stamped with vexation.

"I believe old Hakkabut has a steelyard on board his tartan," said Ben
Zoof, presently.

"Then why didn't you say so before, you idiot?" roared the excitable
little man.

Anxious to pacify him, Servadac assured him that every exertion should
be made to procure the instrument, and directed Ben Zoof to go to the
Jew and borrow it.

"No, stop a moment," he said, as Ben Zoof was moving away on his,
errand; "perhaps I had better go with you myself; the old Jew may