A minute afterwards they were in the presence of Mrs. Scorbitt and J. T. Maston. CHAPTER XX. THE END OF THIS REMARKABLE STORY. “Barbicane? Nicholl?” “Maston!” “You?” “We!” And in that pronoun, spoken simultaneously by the two in a singular tone, there was everything that could be said in the way of irony and reproach. J. T. Maston passed his iron hook across his forehead. Then in a voice that hissed between his lips he asked,— “Your gallery at Kilimanjaro was two thousand feet long and ninety in diameter?” “Yes?” “Your projectile weighed one hundred and eighty thousand tons?” “Yes.” “And you used two thousand tons of meli-melonite?” “Yes.” The three yes’s fell like blows of a sledge-hammer on J. T. Maston’s occiput. “Then I conclude—” he said. “What?” asked Barbicane. “—That, as the experiment failed, the explosive did not give the projectile the necessary initial velocity!” “Indeed!” said Captain Nicholl. “And that your meli-melonite is only fit for pop-guns!” Captain Nicholl started at the insult. “Maston!” he exclaimed. “Nicholl!” “Will you fight me with meli-melonite? “No; with fulmi-cotton. It is surer!” Mrs. Scorbitt hastened to interfere. “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” she said. “Between friends!” Then Impey Barbicane put in a word very quietly,— “What is the use of abusing each other? It is certain that the calculations of our friend Maston were correct, and it is certain that the explosive of our friend Nicholl was sufficient! We followed exactly the teachings of science! And we failed! For what reasons? Probably we shall never know!” “Well,” said the secretary of the Gun Club; “we will try it again!” “And the money which has been lost?” observed Captain Nicholl. “And public opinion, which will not permit you to again risk the fate of the world?” added Mrs. Scorbitt. “What will become of the North Pole?” asked Nicholl. “What is the value of the shares in the North Polar Practical Association?” asked Barbicane. Oh, what a fall there had been thereof! The certificates could be bought at waste-paper prices. Such was the memorable fiasco of the gigantic project of Barbicane & Co. If ever unfortunate engineers were overwhelmed with ridicule, if ever there were amusing articles in the newspapers, caricatures, comic songs, parodies—it was then. Barbicane, the director of the Association, the members of the Gun Club, were literally covered with scorn. The storm of contempt was so thoroughly American that it was untranslatable even in Volapuk. And Europe joined in with such vigour that at last America was scandalized. And then remembering that Barbicane, Nicholl, and Maston were of American birth, and belonged to the famous club of Baltimore, a reaction in their favour set in, which was almost strong enough to make the United States declare war against the Old World.