"Hand me over that ruler, Ardan!" yelled the Captain. "The heavy one! It's the only way now left to bring him to reason!" "Look here, Barbican and M'Nicholl!" cried Ardan, at last making himself heard, and keeping a tight hold both on the cord and the ruler. "This thing has gone far enough! Come. Stop your talk, and answer me a few questions. What do you want of this cord, Barbican?" "To describe a parabolic curve!" "And what are you going to do with the ruler, M'Nicholl!" "To help draw a true hyperbola!" "Promise me, Barbican, that you're not going to lasso the Captain!" "Lasso the Captain! Ha! ha! ha!" "You promise, M'Nicholl, that you're not going to brain the President!" "I brain the President! Ho! ho! ho!" "I want merely to convince him that it is a parabola!" "I only want to make it clear as day that it is hyperbola!" "Does it make any real difference whether it is one or the other?" yelled Ardan. "The greatest possible difference--in the Eye of Science." "A radical and incontrovertible difference--in the Eye of Science!" "Oh! Hang the Eye of Science--will either curve take us to the Moon?" "No!" "Will either take us back to the Earth?" "No!" "Will either take us anywhere that you know of?" "No!" "Why not?" "Because they are both _open_ curves, and therefore can never end!" "Is it of the slightest possible importance which of the two curves controls the Projectile?" "Not the slightest--except in the Eye of Science!" "Then let the Eye of Science and her parabolas and hyperbolas, and conjugates, and asymptotes, and the rest of the confounded nonsensical farrago, all go to pot! What's the use of bothering your heads about them here! Have you not enough to trouble you otherwise? A nice pair of scientists you are? 'Stanislow' scientists, probably. Do _real_ scientists lose their tempers for a trifle? Am I ever to see my ideal of a true scientific man in the flesh? Barbican came very near realizing my idea perfectly; but I see that Science just has as little effect as Culture in driving the Old Adam out of us! The idea of the only simpleton in the lot having to lecture the others on propriety of deportment! I thought they were going to tear each other's eyes out! Ha! Ha! Ha! It's _impayable_! Give me that cord, Michael! Hand me the heavy ruler, Ardan! It's the only way to bring him to reason! Ho! Ho! Ho! It's too good! I shall never get over it!" and he laughed till his sides ached and his cheeks streamed.