Jules Verne Read Online Free PDF Page B

to be just—historically?
    The members of the club in several groups rushed down Walnut Street,
then into the adjoining streets, and then all over the neighborhood.
They woke up the householders; they compelled them to search their
houses, prepared to indemnify them later on for the outrage on their
privacy. Vain were all their trouble and searching. Robur was nowhere
to be found; there was no trace of him. He might have gone off in the
"Go-Ahead," the balloon of the Institute, for all they could tell.
After an hour's hunt the members had to give in and separate, not
before they had agreed to extend their search over the whole
territory of the twin Americas that form the new continent.
    By eleven o'clock quiet had been restored in the neighborhood of
Walnut Street. Philadelphia was able to sink again into that sound
sleep which is the privilege of non-manufacturing towns. The
different members of the club parted to seek their respective houses.
To mention the most distinguished amongst them, William T. Forbes
sought his large sugar establishment, where Miss Doll and Miss Mat
had prepared for him his evening tea, sweetened with his own glucose.
Truck Milnor took the road to his factory in the distant suburb,
where the engines worked day and night. Treasurer Jim Chip, publicly
accused of possessing an alimentary canal twelve inches longer than
that of other men, returned to the vegetable soup that was waiting
for him.
    Two of the most important balloonists—two only—did not seem to
think of returning so soon to their domicile. They availed themselves
of the opportunity to discuss the question with more than usual
acrimony. These were the irreconcilables, Uncle Prudent and Phil
Evans, the president and secretary of the Weldon Institute.
    At the door of the club the valet Frycollin waited for Uncle Prudent,
his master, and at last he went after him, though he cared but little
for the subject which had set the two colleagues at loggerheads.
    It is only an euphemism that the verb "discuss" can be used to
express the way in which the duet between the president and secretary
was being performed. As a matter of fact they were in full wrangle
with an energy born of their old rivalry.
    "No, Sir, no," said Phil Evans. "If I had had the honor of being
president of the Weldon Institute, there never, no, never, would have
been such a scandal."
    "And what would you have done, if you had had the honor?" demanded
Uncle Prudent.
    "I would have stopped the insulter before he had opened his mouth."
    "It seems to me it would have been impossible to stop him until he
had opened his mouth," replied Uncle Prudent.
    "Not in America, Sir; not in America."
    And exchanging such observations, increasing in bitterness as they
went, they walked on through the streets farther and farther from
their homes, until they reached a part of the city whence they had to
go a long way round to get back.
    Frycollin followed, by no means at ease to see his master plunging
into such deserted spots. He did not like deserted spots,
particularly after midnight. In fact the darkness was profound, and
the moon was only a thin crescent just beginning its monthly life.
Frycollin kept a lookout to the left and right of him to see if he
was followed. And he fancied he could see five or six hulking follows
dogging his footsteps. Instinctively he drew nearer to his master,
but not for the world would he have dared to break in on the
conversation of which the fragments reached him.
    In short it so chanced that the president and secretary of the Weldon
Institute found themselves on the road to Fairmount Park. In the full
heat of their dispute they crossed the Schuyllkill river by the
famous iron bridge. They met only a few belated wayfarers, and
pressed on across a wide open tract where the immense prairie was
broken every now and then by the patches of thick woodland—which
make the park different to any other in the world.
    There Frycollin's terror became acute, particularly as