“You are right, Barbicane,” replied Captain Nicholl; “and, besides, when we have reached the moon, we shall have time during the long lunar nights to consider at our leisure the globe on which our likenesses swarm.” “Our likenesses!” exclaimed Michel Ardan; “They are no more our likenesses than the Selenites are! We inhabit a new world, peopled by ourselves—the projectile! I am Barbicane’s likeness, and Barbicane is Nicholl’s. Beyond us, around us, human nature is at an end, and we are the only population of this microcosm until we become pure Selenites.” “In about eighty-eight hours,” replied the captain. “Which means to say?” asked Michel Ardan. “That it is half-past eight,” replied Nicholl. “Very well,” retorted Michel; “then it is impossible for me to find even the shadow of a reason why we should not go to breakfast.” Indeed the inhabitants of the new star could not live without eating, and their stomachs were suffering from the imperious laws of hunger. Michel Ardan, as a Frenchman, was declared chief cook, an important function, which raised no rival. The gas gave sufficient heat for the culinary apparatus, and the provision box furnished the elements of this first feast. The breakfast began with three bowls of excellent soup, thanks to the liquefaction in hot water of those precious cakes of Liebig, prepared from the best parts of the ruminants of the Pampas. To the soup succeeded some beefsteaks, compressed by an hydraulic press, as tender and succulent as if brought straight from the kitchen of an English eating-house. Michel, who was imaginative, maintained that they were even “red.” Preserved vegetables (“fresher than nature,” said the amiable Michel) succeeded the dish of meat; and was followed by some cups of tea with bread and butter, after the American fashion. The beverage was declared exquisite, and was due to the infusion of the choicest leaves, of which the emperor of Russia had given some chests for the benefit of the travelers. And lastly, to crown the repast, Ardan had brought out a fine bottle of Nuits, which was found “by chance” in the provision-box. The three friends drank to the union of the earth and her satellite. And, as if he had not already done enough for the generous wine which he had distilled on the slopes of Burgundy, the sun chose to be part of the party. At this moment the projectile emerged from the conical shadow cast by the terrestrial globe, and the rays of the radiant orb struck the lower disc of the projectile direct occasioned by the angle which the moon’s orbit makes with that of the earth. “The sun!” exclaimed Michel Ardan. “No doubt,” replied Barbicane; “I expected it.” “But,” said Michel, “the conical shadow which the earth leaves in space extends beyond the moon?”