"Ah, friend Barbicane, I am afraid you will never understand the use, or you would not ask!"
"Well, tell me, at all events, my brave companion."
"Well, my friend, I think we ought always to put a little art in all we do. Do you know an Indian play called The Child's Chariot?"
"Not even by name," answered Barbicane.
"I am not surprised at that," continued Michel Ardan. "Learn, then, that in that play there is a robber who, when in the act of piercing the wall of a house, stops to consider whether he shall make his hole in the shape of a lyre, a flower, or a bird. Well, tell me, friend Barbicane, if at that epoch you had been his judge would you have condemned that robber?"
"Without hesitation," answered the president of the Gun Club, "and as a burglar too."
"Well, I should have acquitted him, friend Barbicane. That is why you could never understand me."
"I will not even try, my valiant artist."
"But, at least," continued Michel Ardan, "as the exterior of our projectile compartment leaves much to be desired, I shall be allowed to furnish the inside as I choose, and with all luxury suitable to ambassadors from the earth."
"About that, my brave Michel," answered Barbicane, "you can do entirely as you please."