CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PASSENGER OF THE ATLANTA.
If this wonderful news, instead of coming by telegraph, had simply arrived by post and in a sealed envelope--if the French, Irish, Newfoundland, and American telegraph clerks had not necessarily been acquainted with it--Barbicane would not have hesitated for a moment.

He would have been quite silent about it for prudence' sake, and in order not to throw discredit on his work.

This telegram might be a practical joke, especially as it came from a Frenchman.

What probability could there be that any man should conceive the idea of such a journey?
And if the man did exist was he not a madman who would have to be inclosed in a strait-waistcoat instead of in a cannon-ball?
But the message was known, and Michel Ardan's proposition was already all over the States of the Union, so Barbicane had no reason for silence.

He therefore called together his colleagues then in Tampa Town, and, without showing what he thought about it or saying a word about the degree of credibility the telegram deserved, he read coldly the laconic text.
"Not possible!"-- "Unheard of!"-- "They are laughing at us!"-- "Ridiculous!"-- "Absurd!" Every sort of expression for doubt, incredulity, and folly was heard for some minutes with accompaniment of appropriate gestures.