"Why not? Ought a Frenchman and two Americans to recoil at such a word?"
"But what do you want to do?"
"Command the motion that is carrying us along!"
"Command it?"
"Yes," resumed Michel, getting animated, "stop it or modify it; use it for the accomplishment of our plans."
"And how, pray?"
"That is your business! If artillerymen are not masters of their bullets they are no longer artillerymen. If the projectile commands the gunner, the gunner ought to be rammed instead into the cannon! Fine savants, truly! who don't know now what to do after having induced me—"
"Induced!" cried Barbicane and Nicholl. "Induced! What do you mean by that?"
"No recriminations!" said Michel. "I do not complain. The journey pleases me. The bullet suits me. But let us do all that is humanly possible to fall somewhere, if only upon the moon."
"We should only be too glad, my worthy Michel," answered Barbicane, "but we have no means of doing it."