"Can't tell!" was Barbican's unsatisfactory reply.
"But you can form a few hypotheses?"
"Yes, two!"
"Let us have them."
"The velocity will be either sufficient to carry us past the dead point, or it will not: sufficient, we shall keep on, just as we are now, gravitating forever around the Moon—"
—"Hypothesis number two will have at least one point in its favor," interrupted as usual the incorrigible Ardan; "it can't be worse than hypothesis number one!"
—"Insufficient," continued Barbican, laying down the law, "we shall rest forever motionless on the dead point of the mutually neutralizing attractions."
"A pleasant prospect!" observed Ardan: "from the worst possible to no better! Isn't it, Barbican?"
"Nothing to say," was Barbican's only reply.
"Have you nothing to say either, Captain?" asked Ardan, beginning to be a little vexed at the apparent apathy of his companions.