Which bad Latin may be translated thus:

"Descend, bold traveller, into the crater of the jokul of Sneffels,
which the shadow of Scartaris touches before the kalends of July, and
you will attain the centre of the earth; which I have done, Arne
Saknussemm."

In reading this, my uncle gave a spring as if he had touched a Leyden
jar. His audacity, his joy, and his convictions were magnificent to
behold. He came and he went; he seized his head between both his
hands; he pushed the chairs out of their places, he piled up his
books; incredible as it may seem, he rattled his precious nodules of
flints together; he sent a kick here, a thump there. At last his
nerves calmed down, and like a man exhausted by too lavish an
expenditure of vital power, he sank back exhausted into his armchair.

"What o'clock is it?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

"Three o'clock," I replied.

"Is it really? The dinner-hour is past, and I did not know it. I am
half dead with hunger. Come on, and after dinner--"

[1] In the cipher, AUDAX is written AVDAS, and QUOD and QUEM,
HOD and KEN. (Tr.)

"Well?"

"After dinner, pack up my trunk."