So, while the doctor was pursuing his descriptive course
of lecturing in the officers' mess, Joe reigned supreme
on the forecastle, holding forth in his own peculiar
manner, and making history to suit himself--a style of
procedure pursued, by the way, by the greatest historians
of all ages and nations.

The topic of discourse was, naturally, the aerial voyage.
Joe had experienced some trouble in getting the rebellious
spirits to believe in it; but, once accepted by them, nothing
connected with it was any longer an impossibility to the
imaginations of the seamen stimulated by Joe's harangues.

Our dazzling narrator persuaded his hearers that, after
this trip, many others still more wonderful would be undertaken.
In fact, it was to be but the first of a long series
of superhuman expeditions.

"You see, my friends, when a man has had a taste of that
kind of travelling, he can't get along afterward with any
other; so, on our next expedition, instead of going off to
one side, we'll go right ahead, going up, too, all the time."

"Humph! then you'll go to the moon!" said one of
the crowd, with a stare of amazement.

"To the moon!" exclaimed Joe, "To the moon! pooh!
that's too common. Every body might go to the moon,
that way. Besides, there's no water there, and you have
to carry such a lot of it along with you. Then you have