"And what truth is there in that hypothesis?" asked Michel.
"None," answered Barbicane, "and the proof is that the moon has not kept a trace of the gaseous envelope that always accompanies comets."
"But," said Nicholl, "might not the moon, before becoming the earth's satellite, have passed near enough to the sun to leave all her gaseous substances by evaporation?"
"It might, friend Nicholl, but it is not probable."
"Why?"
"Because—because, I really don't know."
"Ah, what hundreds of volumes we might fill with what we don't know!" exclaimed Michel. "But I say," he continued, "what time is it?"
"Three o'clock," answered Nicholl.
"How the time goes," said Michel, "in the conversation of savants like us! Decidedly I feel myself getting too learned! I feel that I am becoming a well of knowledge!"
So saying, Michel climbed to the roof of the projectile, "in order better to observe the moon," he pretended. In the meanwhile his companions watched the vault of space through the lower port-light. There was nothing fresh to signalise.