And hence Alcide resolved to take a year’s holiday, and thought he could not employ his time better than in following the North Polar Practical Association in its peculiar undertaking.
As soon as he arrived at Baltimore he began to think over the matter seriously. That the Earth would become Jovian by the change of its axis mattered very little to him. But by what means it was to be brought about excited his curiosity, and not without reason.
In his picturesque language he said to himself,—
“Evidently Barbicane is going to give our ball a terrible knock; but what sort of a knock? Everything depends on that! I suppose he is going to play for ‘side,’ as if with a cue at a billiard-ball; but if he hits us ‘square’ he may jolt us out of our orbit, and then the years will dance to a pretty tune. They are going to shift the old axis for a new one, probably above it, but I do not see where they are to get their taking-off place from, or how they are to manage the knock. If there was no rotation, a mere flip would suffice, but they can’t put down that diurnal spin. That is the canisdentum.”
He meant “the rub,” but that was his way of expressing himself.
“Whatever they do,” he continued, “there will be no end of a row before it is over.”
Try all he could, the engineer could not discover Barbicane’s plan, which for one reason was much to be regretted, as if it had been known to him he would at once have made the calculations he needed.
But all at present was a mystery. And so it happened that on the 29th of December Alcide Pierdeux, “Ingénieur au Corps National des Mines de France,” was hurrying with lengthy strides through the crowded streets of Baltimore.
CHAPTER X.
A CHANGE IN PUBLIC OPINION.
A month had elapsed since the meeting in the rooms of the Gun Club, and a change had taken place in public opinion.