Here is the text of the dispatch, which figures now in the archives of the Gun Club:
FRANCE, PARIS,
30 September, 4 A.M.
Barbicane, Tampa Town, Florida, United States.
Substitute for your spherical shell a cylindro-conical projectile. I shall go inside. Shall arrive by steamer Atlanta.
MICHEL ARDAN.
CHAPTER 18 The Passenger of the Atlanta
If this astounding news, instead of flying through the electric wires, had simply arrived by post in the ordinary sealed envelope, Barbicane would not have hesitated a moment. He would have held his tongue about it, both as a measure of prudence,and in order not to have to reconsider his plans. This telegram might be a cover for some jest, especially as it came from a Frenchman. What human being would ever have conceived the idea of such a journey? and,if such a person really existed, he must be an idiot,whom one would shut up in a lunatic ward, rather than within the walls of the projectile.