real purpose was ornamental rather than deadly.

At the further end of the saloon the president, assisted by four
secretaries, occupied a large platform. His chair, supported by
a carved gun-carriage, was modeled upon the ponderous proportions
of a 32-inch mortar. It was pointed at an angle of ninety degrees,
and suspended upon truncheons, so that the president could balance
himself upon it as upon a rocking-chair, a very agreeable fact in
the very hot weather. Upon the table (a huge iron plate supported
upon six carronades) stood an inkstand of exquisite elegance, made
of a beautifully chased Spanish piece, and a sonnette, which, when
required, could give forth a report equal to that of a revolver.
During violent debates this novel kind of bell scarcely sufficed
to drown the clamor of these excitable artillerists.

In front of the table benches arranged in zigzag form, like the
circumvallations of a retrenchment, formed a succession of
bastions and curtains set apart for the use of the members of
the club; and on this especial evening one might say, "All the
world was on the ramparts." The president was sufficiently well
known, however, for all to be assured that he would not put his
colleagues to discomfort without some very strong motive.

Impey Barbicane was a man of forty years of age, calm, cold,
austere; of a singularly serious and self-contained demeanor,
punctual as a chronometer, of imperturbable temper and immovable
character; by no means chivalrous, yet adventurous withal, and
always bringing practical ideas to bear upon the very rashest
enterprises; an essentially New Englander, a Northern colonist,
a descendant of the old anti-Stuart Roundheads, and the