accordance with the present invitation. Very cordially,
IMPEY BARBICANE, P.G.C.
CHAPTER II
PRESIDENT BARBICANE’S COMMUNICATION
On the 5th of October, at eight p.m., a dense crowd pressed
toward the saloons of the Gun Club at No. 21 Union Square.
All the members of the association resident in Baltimore attended
the invitation of their president. As regards the corresponding
members, notices were delivered by hundreds throughout the streets
of the city, and, large as was the great hall, it was quite
inadequate to accommodate the crowd of _savants_. They overflowed
into the adjoining rooms, down the narrow passages, into the
outer courtyards. There they ran against the vulgar herd who
pressed up to the doors, each struggling to reach the front ranks,
all eager to learn the nature of the important communication of
President Barbicane; all pushing, squeezing, crushing with that
perfect freedom of action which is so peculiar to the masses when
educated in ideas of “self-government.”
On that evening a stranger who might have chanced to be in
Baltimore could not have gained admission for love or money into
the great hall. That was reserved exclusively for resident or
corresponding members; no one else could possibly have obtained
a place; and the city magnates, municipal councilors, and
“select men” were compelled to mingle with the mere townspeople
in order to catch stray bits of news from the interior.
Nevertheless the vast hall presented a curious spectacle.
Its immense area was singularly adapted to the purpose.
Lofty pillars formed of cannon, superposed upon huge mortars as a
base, supported the fine ironwork of the arches, a perfect piece
of cast-iron lacework. Trophies of blunderbuses, matchlocks,
arquebuses, carbines, all kinds of firearms, ancient and modern,
were picturesquely interlaced against the walls. The gas lit
up in full glare myriads of revolvers grouped in the form of
lustres, while groups of pistols, and candelabra formed of
muskets bound together, completed this magnificent display
of brilliance. Models of cannon, bronze castings, sights covered
with dents, plates battered by the shots of the Gun Club,
assortments of rammers and sponges, chaplets of shells, wreaths
of projectiles, garlands of howitzers– in short, all the
apparatus of the artillerist, enchanted the eye by this
wonderful arrangement and induced a kind of belief that their
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
implacable enemy of the gentlemen of the South, those ancient
cavaliers of the mother country. In a word, he was a Yankee to
the backbone.
Barbicane had made a large fortune as a timber merchant.
Being nominated director of artillery during the war, he proved
himself fertile in invention. Bold in his conceptions, he