Nevertheless, in spite of his preoccupations, Michel Ardan did not forget to prepare the morning meal with his habitual punctuality.  They ate heartily.  Nothing was more excellent than their broth liquefied by the heat of the gas.  Nothing better than these preserved meats.  A few glasses of good French wine crowned the repast, and caused Michel Ardan to remark that the lunar vines, warmed by this ardent sun, ought to distil the most generous wines—­that is, if they existed.  Any way, the far-seeing Frenchman had taken care not to forget in his collection some precious cuttings of the Medoc and Cote d’Or, upon which he counted particularly.

The Reiset and Regnault apparatus always worked with extreme precision.  The air was kept in a state of perfect purity.  Not a particle of carbonic acid resisted the potash, and as to the oxygen, that, as Captain Nicholl said, was of “first quality.”  The small amount of humidity in the projectile mixed with this air and tempered its dryness, and many Paris, London, or New York apartments and many theatres do not certainly fulfil hygienic conditions so well.

But in order to work regularly this apparatus had to be kept going regularly.  Each morning Michel inspected the escape regulators, tried the taps, and fixed by the pyrometer the heat of the gas.  All had gone well so far, and the travellers, imitating the worthy J.T.  Maston, began to get so stout that they would not be recognisable if their imprisonment lasted several months.  They behaved like chickens in a cage—­they fattened.

Looking through the port lights Barbicane saw the spectre of the dog, and the different objects thrown out of the projectile, which obstinately accompanied it.  Diana howled lamentably when she perceived the remains of Satellite.  All the things seemed as motionless as if they had rested upon solid ground.

“Do you know, my friends,” said Michel Ardan, “that if one of us had succumbed to the recoil shock at departure we should have been much embarrassed as to how to get rid of him?  You see the accusing corpse would have followed us in space like remorse!”

“That would have been sad,” said Nicholl.

“Ah!” continued Michel, “what I regret is our not being able to take a walk outside.  What delight it would be to float in this radiant ether, to bathe in these pure rays of the sun!  If Barbicane had only thought of furnishing us with diving-dresses and air-pumps I should have ventured outside, and have assumed the attitude of a flying-horse on the summit of the projectile.”

“Ah, old fellow!” answered Barbicane, “you would not have stayed there long in spite of your diving-dress; you would have burst like an obus by the expansion of air inside you, or rather like a balloon that goes up too high.  So regret nothing, and do not forget this:  while we are moving in the void you must do without any sentimental promenade out of the projectile.”

Michel Ardan allowed himself to be convinced in a certain measure.  He agreed that the thing was difficult, but not “impossible;” that was a word he never uttered.