"Lend me your ears," said the Philosopher. They lent them, but
without interest. Yet they were all keen business men. "Attention,
my friends!" he continued, somewhat annoyed. "You know why I have
summoned you. We have to make another journey together. The moon, the
sea, the earth--we have voyaged and journeyed to them, and they are
exhausted. It remains to visit the Sun, and to perform the journey
in an iceberg. Do you see? Colonel GOBANG will supply the craft, Lord
JOHN BULLPUP the stupid courage, and you, M. le Docteur," he added,
admiringly, "will of course take the cake."
He paused, and waited for Lord JOHN's reply. It came prompt, and in
the expected words.
"Is it a plum-pudding cake?" said Lord JOHN. The rest laughed
heartily. They loved their jokes, small and old.
"Are we agreed?"
"We are."
"Have you anything to ask?"
"Nothing. When do we start?"
"We are on our way."
"Shall we not melt as we approach?"
"Certainly not."
"How so?"
"We shall have a constant frost."
"Are you sure?"
"Certain. I have taken in a supply of _Matinées_, and a stock of
Five-act Tragedies."
"Good. But how to raise the wind?"
Scarcely, had the question been asked, when a frightful explosion
shook the iceberg to its foundations. The Doctor rushed to the gasbag.
It was empty. He frowned. Lord JOHN was smoking his pipe; the Colonel
was turning over the pages of an old Algebra. He muttered to himself,
"That ought to figure it out. If _x_ = the amount of non-compressible
fluid consumed by a given labourer in _y_ days, find, by the
substitution of poached eggs for kippered herrings, how many tea-cups
it will take to make a transpontine hurricane. Yes," he went on,
"that's it. Yes, Sirree." And at these words the vast mass of
congealed water rose majestically out of the ocean, and floated off
into the nebular hypothesis. But the Philosopher had vanished.