CHAPTER XXIV.
FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB.
The intense interest of our extraordinary but most veracious history having reached its culmination at the end of the last chapter, our absorbing chronicle might with every propriety have been then and there concluded; but we can't part from our gracious and most indulgent reader before giving him a few more details which may be instructive perhaps, if not amusing.
No doubt he kindly remembers the world-wide sympathy with which our three famous travellers had started on their memorable trip to the Moon.
If so, he may be able to form some idea of the enthusiasm universally excited by the news of their safe return.

Would not the millions of spectators that had thronged Florida to witness their departure, now rush to the other extremity of the Union to welcome them back?
Could those innumerable Europeans, Africans and Asiatics, who had visited the United States simply to have a look at M'Nicholl, Ardan and Barbican, ever think of quitting the country without having seen those wonderful men again?
Certainly not! Nay, more--the reception and the welcome that those heroes would everywhere be greeted with, should be on a scale fully commensurate with the grandeur of their own gigantic enterprise.
The Sons of Earth who had fearlessly quitted this terrestrial globe and who had succeeded in returning after accomplishing a journey inconceivably wonderful, well deserved to be received with every extremity of pride, pomp and glorious circumstance that the world is capable of displaying.
To catch a glimpse of these demi-gods, to hear the sound of their voices, perhaps even to touch their hands--these were the only emotions with which the great heart of the country at large was now throbbing.
To gratify this natural yearning of humanity, to afford not only to every foreigner but to every native in the land an opportunity of beholding the three heroes who had reflected such indelible glory on the American name, and to do it all in a manner eminently worthy of the great American Nation, instantly became the desire of the American People.
To desire a thing, and to have it, are synonymous terms with the great people of the American Republic.
A little thinking simplified the matter considerably: as all the people could not go to the heroes, the heroes should go to all the people.
So decided, so done.
It was nearly two months before Barbican and his friends could get back to Baltimore.

The winter travelling over the Rocky Mountains had been very difficult on account of the heavy snows, and, even when they found themselves in the level country, though they tried to travel as privately as possible, and for the present positively declined all public receptions, they were compelled to spend some time in the houses of the warm friends near whom they passed in the course of their long journey.
The rough notes of their Moon adventures--the only ones that they could furnish just then--circulating like wild fire and devoured with universal avidity, only imparted a keener whet to the public desire to feast their eyes on such men.

These notes were telegraphed free to every newspaper in the country, but the longest and best account of the "_Journey to the Moon_" appeared in the columns of the _New York Herald_, owing to the fact that Watkins the reporter had had the adventurers all to himself during the whole of the three days' trip of the _Susquehanna_ back to San Francisco.

In a week after their return, every man, woman, and child in the United States knew by heart some of the main facts and incidents in the famous journey; but, of course, it is needless to say that they knew nothing at all about the finer points and the highly interesting minor details of the astounding story.