CHAPTER XX.
IN WHICH THIS STORY, AS TRUTHFUL AS IT IS IMPROBABLE, IS FINISHED.
“Barbicane!!! Nicholl!!”
“Maston.”
“You.”
“We.”
And in this plural pronoun, uttered simultaneously by the two associates in a single voice, might be heard a flood of irony and reproaches.
J.T. Maston pressed his iron hook on his forehead. Then, with a voice which seemed to stick in his throat, he said:
“Did your shaft at Kilimanjaro really have a diameter of twenty-seven metres?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did your projectile really weigh 180,000,000 of kilograms?”
“Yes.”
“And was the shooting really done with 2,000 pounds of melimelonite?”
“Yes.”
This thrice-repeated “yes” fell on J. T. Maston like masses of stone on his head.
“Then I can only conclude”—said he.
“What?” asked President Barbicane.
“As follows
