"
"Why so?"
"To show that I can understand as well as interrupt!"
"You have the floor!" exclaimed Barbican, in a voice no longer showing
any traces of ill humor.
"I expected no less from the honorable gentleman's well known courtesy,"
replied Ardan. Then changing his manner and imitating to the life
Barbican's voice, articulation, and gestures, he continued: "Whereas,
you see, my dear Captain, the period at which the Moon's visible side
receives at once its light and heat, is exactly the period of her
_opposition_, that is to say, when she is lying on one side of the Earth
and the Sun at the other. In comparison therefore with the point which
she had occupied in _conjunction_, or when her invisible side was fully
illuminated, she is farther from the Sun by double her distance from the
Earth, or nearly 480,000 miles. Therefore, my dear Captain, you can
readily see how when the Moon's invisible side is turned _from_ the Sun,
she is nearly half a million miles further from him than she had been
before. Therefore her heat should be so much the less."
"Well done, friend Ardan!" cried Barbican, clapping his hands with
pleasure. "Yes, Captain, he understood it as well as either of us the
whole time.
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