J. T. Maston was no longer master of himself.Whether he shouted or gesticulated, ate or drank most,would be a difficult matter to determine. At all events,he would not have given his place up for an empire,"not even if the cannon—loaded, primed, and fired at that very moment—were to blow him in pieces into the planetary world."
CHAPTER 17 A Telegraphic Dispatch
The great works undertaken by the Gun Club had now virtually come to an end; and two months still remained before the day for the discharge of the shot to the moon. To the general impatience these two months appeared as long as years! Hitherto the smallest details of the operation had been daily chronicled by the journals, which the public devoured with eager eyes.