I often had a good laugh to myself, thinking of your astonishment and the Captain's at seeing a lot of American poultry scratching for worms on a Lunar dunghill!" "Ah! wag, jester, incorrigible _farceur_!" cried Barbican with a smile; "you want no nitrous oxide to put a bee in your bonnet! He is always as bad as you and I were for a short time, M'Nicholl, under the laughing gas! He's never had a sensible moment in his life!" "I can't say the same of you," replied Ardan; "you had at least one sensible moment in all your lives, and that was about an hour ago!" Their incessant chattering did not prevent the friends from at once repairing the disorder of the interior of the Projectile.

Cocks and hens were put back in their cages.

But while doing so, the friends were astonished to find that the birds, though good sized creatures, and now pretty fat and plump, hardly felt heavier in their hands than if they had been so many sparrows.

This drew their interested attention to a new phenomenon.
From the moment they had left the Earth, their own weight, and that of the Projectile and the objects therein contained, had been undergoing a progressive diminution.

They might never be able to ascertain this fact with regard to the Projectile, but the moment was now rapidly approaching when the loss of weight would become perfectly sensible, both regarding themselves and the tools and instruments surrounding them.