“Doubtless,” answered Tom Hunter, angrily poking the fire with the end of his crutch.

“Well,” replied J.T.  Maston, “why should not England in its turn belong to the Americans?”

“It would be but justice,” answered Colonel Blomsberry.

“Go and propose that to the President of the United States,” cried J.T.  Maston, “and see what sort of a reception you would get.”

“It would not be a bad reception,” murmured Bilsby between the four teeth he had saved from battle.

“I’faith,” cried J.T.  Maston, “they need not count upon my vote in the next elections.”

“Nor upon ours,” answered with common accord these bellicose invalids.

“In the meantime,” continued J.T.  Maston, “and to conclude, if they do not furnish me with the opportunity of trying my new mortar on a real battle-field, I shall send in my resignation as member of the Gun Club, and I shall go and bury myself in the backwoods of Arkansas.”

“We will follow you there,” answered the interlocutors of the enterprising J.T.  Maston.

Things had come to that pass, and the club, getting more excited, was menaced with approaching dissolution, when an unexpected event came to prevent so regrettable a catastrophe.

The very day after the foregoing conversation each member of the club received a circular couched in these terms:—­

“Baltimore, October 3rd.

“The president of the Gun Club has the honour to inform his colleagues that at the meeting on the 5th ultimo he will make them a communication of an extremely interesting nature.  He therefore begs that they, to the suspension of all other business, will attend, in accordance with the present invitation,

“Their devoted colleague,

“Impey Barbicane, P.G.C.”

CHAPTER II.

President Barbicane’s communication.

On the 5th of October, at 8 p.m., a dense crowd pressed into the saloons of the Gun Club, 21, Union-square.  All the members of the club residing at Baltimore had gone on the invitation of their president.  The express brought corresponding members by hundreds, and if the meeting-hall had not been so large, the crowd of savants could not have found room in it; they overflowed into the neighbouring rooms, down the passages, and even into the courtyards; there they ran against the populace who were pressing against the doors, each trying to get into the front rank, all eager to learn the important communication of President Barbicane, all pressing, squeezing, crushing with that liberty of action peculiar to the masses brought up in the idea of self-government.

That evening any stranger who might have chanced to be in Baltimore could not have obtained a place at any price in the large hall; it was exclusively reserved to residing or corresponding members; no one else was admitted; and the city magnates, common councillors, and select men were compelled to mingle with their inferiors in order to catch stray news from the interior.