"Hurrah!" cried Michel. "Meteors will be convenient postmen and will not cost anything! And how we shall laugh at the postal service! But now I think--" "What do you think?" "A superb idea! Why did we not fasten a telegraph wire to our bullet? We could have exchanged telegrams with the earth!" "And the weight of a wire 86,000 leagues long," answered Nicholl, "does that go for nothing?" "Yes, for nothing! We should have trebled the charge of the Columbiad! We could have made it four times--five times--greater!" cried Michel, whose voice became more and more violent. "There is a slight objection to make to your project," answered Barbicane. "It is that during the movement of rotation of the globe our wire would have been rolled round it like a chain round a windlass, and it would inevitably have dragged us down to the earth again." "By the thirty-nine stars of the Union!" said Michel, "I have nothing but impracticable ideas to-day--ideas worthy of J.T. Maston! But now I think of it, if we do not return to earth J.T. Maston will certainly come to us!" "Yes! he will come," replied Barbicane; "he is a worthy and courageous comrade. Besides, what could be easier? Is not the Columbiad still lying in Floridian soil? Is cotton and nitric acid wanting wherewith to manufacture the projectile? Will not the moon again pass the zenith of Florida? In another eighteen years will she not occupy exactly the same place that she occupies to-day?" "Yes," repeated Michel--"yes, Maston will come, and with him our friends Elphinstone, Blomsberry, and all the members of the Gun Club, and they will be welcome! Later on trains of projectiles will be established between the earth and the moon! Hurrah for J.T. Maston!" It is probable that if the Honourable J.T. Maston did not hear the hurrahs uttered in his honour his ears tingled at least. What was he doing then? He was no doubt stationed in the Rocky Mountains at Long's Peak, trying to discover the invisible bullet gravitating in space. If he was thinking of his dear companions it must be acknowledged that they were not behindhand with him, and that, under the influence of singular exaltation, they consecrated their best thoughts to him.