"We laughed; and then we set ourselves to consider our situation seriously. M. Longuet went on emptying his pockets; and there came out of them seven little electric lamps similar to those I had myself bought before falling into this hole. He congratulated himself, saying that his instinct had been right in urging him to take plenty of them, for, adding my six to his seven, we now had thirteen lamps, guaranteed to give forty-eight hours' light each, which gave us six hundred and twenty-four hours of consecutive light. He added that since we should not need light for the ten hours a day, afternoon--he was an advocate of the; restful siesta--and night, during which we should sleep, we had light for forty-four days eight hours. "I said to him: 'You are altogether too old-fashioned, M. Longuet. Cartouche immured in the Catacombs would have done exactly the same with electric lamps as you are doing. But I, M. Longuet, I take your seven lamps and add three of mine to them; and this is what I do with them!' "I threw them carelessly down against the foot of the wall. "'There is no point in dragging about these _impedimenta_,' I said. 'Are you hungry, M. Longuet?' "'Very, M. Mifroid.' "'How long do you think you could be hungry?' "Since he did not seem to understand, I explained that I meant to ask him how long he thought he could remain so hungry without eating. "'I am pretty sure,' said he, 'that if I had to stay forty-eight hours as hungry as this...' "'Let us suppose that you stayed as hungry as this for seven days,' I interrupted. 'Three lamps would be quite sufficient for us, for at the end of those three lamps we should have no need of light!' "He had understood. But he smiled amiably, groped about, produced from the floor a good-sized parcel, and said: "'But you see, M. Mifroid, I need not endure this hunger a moment longer than I need. I have here a ham which weighs ten pounds, or a hundred and sixty ounces. I am assured that if a man chews it in the manner invented by M. Fletcher of the United States, he can live for an unlimited period on four ounces of ham a day, and retain the full possession of his faculties and muscular power. We have therefore food for one man for forty days, food for two for twenty days. And then'--he paused, and a singular light came into his eyes--'I think, M. Mifroid, that then--at the end of that twenty days, _one of us will Fletcherise the other_!' "'Nothing, M. Longuet, nothing would induce me to preserve my life by the degrading practice of cannibalism!' I said warmly. "'It is a sentiment which does you much honour, M. Mifroid,' said M. Longuet. 'But there is no need, and indeed it would be impossible, that we should both become cannibals.'