Do you know how long it would take an express train to reach the moon?
Three hundred days.

Not more.

A journey of 86,410 leagues, but what is that?
Not even nine times round the earth, and there are very few sailors who have not done that during their existence.

Think, I shall be only ninety-eight hours on the road! Ah, you imagine that the moon is a long way from the earth, and that one must think twice before attempting the adventure! But what would you say if I were going to Neptune, which gravitates at 1,147,000,000 leagues from the sun?
That is a journey that very few people could go, even if it only cost a farthing a mile! Even Baron Rothschild would not have enough to take his ticket!" This argument seemed greatly to please the assembly; besides, Michel Ardan, full of his subject, grew superbly eloquent; he felt he was listened to, and resumed with admirable assurance-- "Well, my friends, this distance from Neptune to the sun is nothing compared to that of the stars, some of which are billions of leagues from the sun! And yet people speak of the distance that separates the planets from the sun! Do you know what I think of this universe that begins with the sun and ends at Neptune?
Should you like to know my theory?
It is a very simple one.

According to my opinion, the solar universe is one solid homogeneous mass; the planets that compose it are close together, crowd one another, and the space between them is only the space that separates the molecules of the most compact metal--silver, iron, or platinum! I have, therefore, the right to affirm, and I will repeat it with a conviction you will all share--distance is a vain word; distance does not exist!" "Well said! Bravo! Hurrah!" cried the assembly with one voice, electrified by the gesture and accent of the orator, and the boldness of his conceptions.
"No!" cried J.T.Maston, more energetically than the others; "distance does not exist!" And, carried away by the violence of his movements and emotions he could hardly contain, he nearly fell from the top of the platform to the ground.