"Old Barbicane," said Michel, "you have an answer for everything, and I bow before your wisdom. But there is one hypothesis that would suit me better than all the others, which is, that the Selenites, being older than we, are wiser, and have not invented gunpowder."
At this moment Diana joined in the conversation by a sonorous barking. She was asking for her breakfast.
"Ah!" said Michel Ardan, "in our discussion we have forgotten Diana and Satellite."
Immediately a good-sized pie was given to the dog, which devoured it hungrily.
"Do you see, Barbicane," said Michel, "we should have made a second Noah's Ark of this projectile, and borne with us to the moon a couple of every kind of domestic animal."
"I dare say; but room would have failed us."
"Oh!" said Michel, "we might have squeezed a little."
"The fact is," replied Nicholl, "that cows, bulls, and horses, and all ruminants, would have been very useful on the lunar continent, but unfortunately the car could neither have been made a stable nor a shed."
"Well, we might at least have brought a donkey, only a little donkey; that courageous beast which old Silenus loved to mount. I love those old donkeys; they are the least favoured animals in creation; they are not only beaten while alive, but even after they are dead."
"How do you make that out?" asked Barbicane.