Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/648

 “Jules Verne is ahead of you, for he undertook a like journey to the moon!”

A light smile again passed over my friend’s face.

“You are right,” he said, “but only partly so; for even Jules Verne was not the first to undertake so adventurous a journey. Edgar Allan Poe went on a like journey about a quarter of a century before him; and so did one Cyrano de Bergerac in the seventeenth century. The course of the journey is the same, but the means and the object are different. All of those who have undertaken the journey before have employed complicated apparatus, and have intended to amuse and to instruct, but I use the simplest means, and the object of my journey is—”

“We don’t care what it is!” the morose guest in the rear interjected. “We want proof that such an excursion is feasible!”

“I shall furnish the proof immediately,” my friend answered. “Let any one who chooses take a slip of paper and write down what event of history he wants to see; then let a delegate be chosen who shall undertake the journey with me as a manager of the machine.”

My friend gave a sign with his hand, and the machine flew up several times, and again slipped noiselessly down upon the table. Its movements were so rapid that it was impossible to count them. This showed that the machine was really something wonderful. Thereupon there was a moderate commotion in the hall. Some of the guests, served with small slips of paper by the valets, wrote what events they wished to see; others stood in groups and talked, while my friend quietly waited at his table until all would be ready. Like the rest, I too was fully convinced that a real performance of this fantastic excursion into the universe could not even be thought of; yet I was eager to see how my friend would proceed. Positive that the experiment could not be performed save by means of an optical delusion, I was the more curious to see how he would delude the senses of so choice a company, and whether he would succeed in deceiving me too.

After the notes had been written and put on the table, he resumed,—