J. T. Maston was in such a state of excitement that he declared he would leave his retreat. Mrs. Scorbitt tried in vain to prevent him. Not that she feared for his life, for the danger was over. But the pleasantries that would be showered on the unhappy calculator, the jokes that would rain on his work,—she would have spared him. And, still more serious, what was the reception the Gun Club would give him? Would they retain him as their secretary after a failure that covered them with ridicule? Was not he, the author of the calculations, entirely responsible for the collapse? He would listen to nothing. He would yield neither to the tears nor prayers of Mrs. Scorbitt. He came out of the house in which he was hidden. He appeared in the streets of Baltimore. He was recognized, and those whom he had menaced in their fortune and existence, whose anxiety he had prolonged by his obstinate silence, took vengeance on him by deriding him in every way. The street boys shouted after him,— “Go along, old pole-shifter!” “Hallo, old clock-jobber!” “How’s the figuring tinker?” And a mob gathered and began to hustle him, and he had to seek refuge in the New Park mansion, where Mrs. Scorbitt did her best to console him. It was in vain. J. T. Maston—after the example of Niobe—would not be consoled. His gun had produced no more effect on the terrestrial spheroid than an ordinary petard. A fortnight went by, and the world had already forgotten the North Polar Practical Association. A fortnight, and no news of Barbicane or Captain Nicholl! Had they perished in the counter-shock of the explosion, victims to the ravages produced among the Wamasai? Had they paid with their lives for the biggest mystification of modern times? No. At the explosion Barbicane and Nicholl had been thrown down; so had the Sultan, and several thousand natives; but they had all got up again safe and sound. “Is it a success?” asked Bali-Bali rubbing his shoulders. “Can you doubt it?” “I—doubt it! But when shall we know?” “In a day or two!” said Barbicane. Did he see that the attempt had failed? Possibly. But he never would have admitted it to the monarch of the Wamasai. Two days afterwards Barbicane and Nicholl took their leave of Bali-Bali, not without paying a good round sum for the destruction done to the surface of his kingdom. And as the money went to his own private pocket, and his subjects got not a dollar, he had no cause to regret so lucrative an affair. Then the two friends, followed by their foremen, reached Zanzibar, where they found a vessel starting for Suez. There, under assumed names, they took passage to Marseilles, whence by the P.L.M. and the Ouest they reached Havre, where they went on board the _Bourgogne_ and crossed the Atlantic. In twenty-two days after they left the Wamasai they were in New York. On the 15th of October, at three o’clock in the afternoon, they knocked at the door of the mansion in New Park.