“Not possible!”—­“Unheard of!”—­“They are laughing at us!”—­“Ridiculous!”—­“Absurd!” Every sort of expression for doubt, incredulity, and folly was heard for some minutes with accompaniment of appropriate gestures.  J.T.  Maston alone uttered the words:—­

“That’s an idea!” he exclaimed.

“Yes,” answered the major, “but if people have such ideas as that they ought not to think of putting them into execution.”

“Why not?” quickly answered the secretary of the Gun Club, ready for an argument.  But the subject was let drop.

In the meantime Michel Ardan’s name was already going about Tampa Town.  Strangers and natives talked and joked together, not about the European—­evidently a mythical personage—­but about J.T.  Maston, who had the folly to believe in his existence.  When Barbicane proposed to send a projectile to the moon every one thought the enterprise natural and practicable—­a simple affair of ballistics.  But that a reasonable being should offer to go the journey inside the projectile was a farce, or, to use a familiar Americanism, it was all “humbug.”

This laughter lasted till evening throughout the Union, an unusual thing in a country where any impossible enterprise finds adepts and partisans.

Still Michel Ardan’s proposition did not fail to awaken a certain emotion in many minds.  “They had not thought of such a thing.”  How many things denied one day had become realities the next!  Why should not this journey be accomplished one day or another?  But, any way, the man who would run such a risk must be a madman, and certainly, as his project could not be taken seriously, he would have done better to be quiet about it, instead of troubling a whole population with such ridiculous trash.

But, first of all, did this personage really exist?  That was the great question.  The name of “Michel Ardan” was not altogether unknown in America.  It belonged to a European much talked about for his audacious enterprises.  Then the telegram sent all across the depths of the Atlantic, the designation of the ship upon which the Frenchman had declared he had taken his passage, the date assigned for his arrival—­all these circumstances gave to the proposition a certain air of probability.  They were obliged to disburden their minds about it.  Soon these isolated individuals formed into groups, the groups became condensed under the action of curiosity like atoms by virtue of molecular attraction, and the result was a compact crowd going towards President Barbicane’s dwelling.

The president, since the arrival of the message, had not said what he thought about it; he had let J.T.  Maston express his opinions without manifesting either approbation or blame.  He kept quiet, proposing to await events, but he had not taken public impatience into consideration, and was not very pleased at the sight of the population of Tampa Town assembled under his windows.  Murmurs, cries, and vociferations soon forced him to appear.  It will be seen that he had all the disagreeables as well as the duties of a public man.