The gas, it will be remembered, had been intended for heating alone, not illumination, of which both Sun and Moon had promised a never ending supply.

But here both Sun and Moon, in a single instant vanished from before their eyes and left them in Stygian darkness.
"It's all the Sun's fault!" cried Ardan, angrily trying to throw the blame on something, and, like every angry man in such circumstances, bound to be rather nonsensical.
"Put the saddle on the right horse, Ardan," said M'Nicholl patronizingly, always delighted at an opportunity of counting a point off the Frenchman.

"You mean it's all the Moon's fault, don't you, in setting herself like a screen between us and the Sun ?" "No, I don't!" cried Ardan, not at all soothed by his friend's patronizing tone, and sticking like a man to his first assertion right or wrong.

"I know what I say! It will be all the Sun's fault if we use up our gas!" "Nonsense!" said M'Nicholl.

"It's the Moon, who by her interposition has cut off the Sun's light." "The Sun had no business to allow it to be cut off," said Ardan, still angry and therefore decidedly loose in his assertions.
Before M'Nicholl could reply, Barbican interposed, and his even voice was soon heard pouring balm on the troubled waters.
"Dear friends," he observed, "a little reflection on either side would convince you that our present situation is neither the Moon's fault nor the Sun's fault.