Off on a Comet (30 page)

Hakkabut looked keenly into the captain's face.

"We have only come to know whether you can lend us a steelyard."

So far from showing any symptom of relief, the old miser exclaimed,
with a stare of astonishment, as if he had been asked for some thousand
francs: "A steelyard?"

"Yes!" echoed the professor, impatiently; "a steelyard."

"Have you not one?" asked Servadac.

"To be sure he has!" said Ben Zoof.

Old Isaac stammered and stuttered, but at last confessed that perhaps
there might be one amongst the stores.

"Then, surely, you will not object to lend it to us?" said the captain.

"Only for one day," added the professor.

The Jew stammered again, and began to object. "It is a very delicate
instrument, your Excellency. The cold, you know, the cold may do injury
to the spring; and perhaps you are going to use it to weigh something
very heavy."

"Why, old Ephraim, do you suppose we are going to weigh a mountain with
it?" said Ben Zoof.

"Better than that!" cried out the professor, triumphantly; "we are going
to weigh Gallia with it; my comet."

"Merciful Heaven!" shrieked Isaac, feigning consternation at the bare
suggestion.

Servadac knew well enough that the Jew was holding out only for a good
bargain, and assured him that the steelyard was required for no other
purpose than to weigh a kilogramme, which (considering how much lighter
everything had become) could not possibly put the slightest strain upon
the instrument.

The Jew still spluttered, and moaned, and hesitated.

"Well, then," said Servadac, "if you do not like to lend us your
steelyard, do you object to sell it to us?"

Isaac fairly shrieked aloud. "God of Israel!" he ejaculated, "sell my
steelyard? Would you deprive me of one of the most indispensable of
my means of livelihood? How should I weigh my merchandise without my
steelyard—my solitary steelyard, so delicate and so correct?"

The orderly wondered how his master could refrain from strangling the
old miser upon the spot; but Servadac, rather amused than otherwise,
determined to try another form of persuasion. "Come, Hakkabut, I see
that you are not disposed either to lend or to sell your steelyard. What
do you say to letting us hire it?"

The Jew's eyes twinkled with a satisfaction that he was unable to
conceal. "But what security would you give? The instrument is very
valuable;" and he looked more cunning than ever.

"What is it worth? If it is worth twenty francs, I will leave a deposit
of a hundred. Will that satisfy you?"

He shook his head doubtfully. "It is very little; indeed, it is too
little, your Excellency. Consider, it is the only steelyard in all this
new world of ours; it is worth more, much more. If I take your deposit
it must be in gold—all gold. But how much do you agree to give me for
the hire—the hire, one day?"

"You shall have twenty francs," said Servadac.

"Oh, it is dirt cheap; but never mind, for one day, you shall have it.
Deposit in gold money a hundred francs, and twenty francs for the hire."
The old man folded his hands in meek resignation.

"The fellow knows how to make a good bargain," said Servadac, as Isaac,
after casting a distrustful look around, went out of the cabin.

"Detestable old wretch!" replied the count, full of disgust.

Hardly a minute elapsed before the Jew was back again, carrying his
precious steelyard with ostentatious care. It was of an ordinary kind.
A spring balance, fitted with a hook, held the article to be weighed;
a pointer, revolving on a disc, indicated the weight of the article.
Professor Rosette was manifestly right in asserting that such a machine
would register results quite independently of any change in the force
of attraction. On the earth it would have registered a kilogramme as a
kilogramme; here it recorded a different value altogether, as the result
of the altered force of gravity.

Gold coinage to the worth of one hundred and twenty francs was handed
over to the Jew, who clutched at the money with unmistakable eagerness.
The steelyard was committed to the keeping of Ben Zoof, and the visitors
prepared to quit the
Hansa
.

All at once it occurred to the professor that the steelyard would be
absolutely useless to him, unless he had the means for ascertaining the
precise measurement of the unit of the soil of Gallia which he proposed
to weigh. "Something more you must lend me," he said, addressing the
Jew. "I must have a measure, and I must have a kilogramme."

"I have neither of them," answered Isaac. "I have neither. I am sorry; I
am very sorry." And this time the old Jew spoke the truth. He would have
been really glad to do another stroke or two of business upon terms as
advantageous as the transaction he had just concluded.

Palmyrin Rosette scratched his head in perplexity, glaring round upon
his companions as if they were personally responsible for his annoyance.
He muttered something about finding a way out of his difficulty, and
hastily mounted the cabin-ladder. The rest followed, but they had hardly
reached the deck when the chink of money was heard in the room below.
Hakkabut was locking away the gold in one of the drawers.

Back again, down the ladder, scrambled the little professor, and before
the Jew was aware of his presence he had seized him by the tail of his
slouchy overcoat. "Some of your money! I must have money!" he said.

"Money!" gasped Hakkabut; "I have no money." He was pale with fright,
and hardly knew what he was saying.

"Falsehood!" roared Rosette. "Do you think I cannot see?" And peering
down into the drawer which the Jew was vainly trying to close, he cried,
"Heaps of money! French money! Five-franc pieces! the very thing I want!
I must have them!"

The captain and his friends, who had returned to the cabin looked on
with mingled amusement and bewilderment.

"They are mine!" shrieked Hakkabut.

"I will have them!" shouted the professor.

"You shall kill me first!" bellowed the Jew.

"No, but I must!" persisted the professor again.

It was manifestly time for Servadac to interfere. "My dear professor,"
he said, smiling, "allow me to settle this little matter for you."

"Ah! your Excellency," moaned the agitated Jew, "protect me! I am but a
poor man—"

"None of that, Hakkabut. Hold your tongue." And, turning to Rosette,
the captain said, "If, sir, I understand right, you require some silver
five-franc pieces for your operation?"

"Forty," said Rosette, surlily.

"Two hundred francs!" whined Hakkabut.

"Silence!" cried the captain.

"I must have more than that," the professor continued. "I want ten
two-franc pieces, and twenty half-francs."

"Let me see," said Servadac, "how much is that in all? Two hundred and
thirty francs, is it not?"

"I dare say it is," answered the professor.

"Count, may I ask you," continued Servadac, "to be security to the Jew
for this loan to the professor?"

"Loan!" cried the Jew, "do you mean only a loan?"

"Silence!" again shouted the captain.

Count Timascheff, expressing his regret that his purse contained only
paper money, begged to place it at Captain Servadac's disposal.

"No paper, no paper!" exclaimed Isaac. "Paper has no currency in
Gallia."

"About as much as silver," coolly retorted the count.

"I am a poor man," began the Jew.

"Now, Hakkabut, stop these miserable lamentations of yours, once for
all. Hand us over two hundred and thirty francs in silver money, or we
will proceed to help ourselves."

Isaac began to yell with all his might: "Thieves! thieves!"

In a moment Ben Zoof's hand was clasped tightly over his mouth. "Stop
that howling, Belshazzar!"

"Let him alone, Ben Zoof. He will soon come to his senses," said
Servadac, quietly.

When the old Jew had again recovered himself, the captain addressed him.
"Now, tell us, what interest do you expect?"

Nothing could overcome the Jew's anxiety to make another good bargain.
He began: "Money is scarce, very scarce, you know—"

"No more of this!" shouted Servadac. "What interest, I say, what
interest do you ask?"

Faltering and undecided still, the Jew went on. "Very scarce, you know.
Ten francs a day, I think, would not be unreasonable, considering—"

The count had no patience to allow him to finish what he was about
to say. He flung down notes to the value of several rubles. With a
greediness that could not be concealed, Hakkabut grasped them all.
Paper, indeed, they were; but the cunning Israelite knew that they would
in any case be security far beyond the value of his cash. He was making
some eighteen hundred per cent. interest, and accordingly chuckled
within himself at his unexpected stroke of business.

The professor pocketed his French coins with a satisfaction far more
demonstrative. "Gentlemen," he said, "with these franc pieces I obtain
the means of determining accurately both a meter and a kilogramme."

A quarter of an hour later, the visitors to the
Hansa
had reassembled
in the common hall of Nina's Hive.

"Now, gentlemen, we can proceed," said the professor. "May I request
that this table may be cleared?"

Ben Zoof removed the various articles that were lying on the table, and
the coins which had just been borrowed from the Jew were placed upon it
in three piles, according to their value.

The professor commenced. "Since none of you gentlemen, at the time
of the shock, took the precaution to save either a meter measure or
a kilogramme weight from the earth, and since both these articles are
necessary for the calculation on which we are engaged, I have been
obliged to devise means of my own to replace them."

This exordium delivered, he paused and seemed to watch its effect
upon his audience, who, however, were too well acquainted with the
professor's temper to make any attempt to exonerate themselves from the
rebuke of carelessness, and submitted silently to the implied reproach.

"I have taken pains," he continued, "to satisfy myself that these
coins are in proper condition for my purpose. I find them unworn and
unchipped; indeed, they are almost new. They have been hoarded instead
of circulated; accordingly, they are fit to be utilized for my purpose
of obtaining the precise length of a terrestrial meter."

Ben Zoof looked on in perplexity, regarding the lecturer with much the
same curiosity as he would have watched the performances of a traveling
mountebank at a fair in Montmartre; but Servadac and his two friends had
already divined the professor's meaning. They knew that French coinage
is all decimal, the franc being the standard of which the other coins,
whether gold, silver, or copper, are multiples or measures; they knew,
too, that the caliber or diameter of each piece of money is rigorously
determined by law, and that the diameters of the silver coins
representing five francs, two francs, and fifty centimes measure
thirty-seven, twenty-seven, and eighteen millimeters respectively; and
they accordingly guessed that Professor Rosette had conceived the plan
of placing such a number of these coins in juxtaposition that the
length of their united diameters should measure exactly the thousand
millimeters that make up the terrestrial meter.

The measurement thus obtained was by means of a pair of compasses
divided accurately into ten equal portions, or decimeters, each of
course 3.93 inches long. A lath was then cut of this exact length and
given to the engineer of the
Dobryna
, who was directed to cut out of
the solid rock the cubic decimeter required by the professor.

The next business was to obtain the precise weight of a kilogramme. This
was by no means a difficult matter. Not only the diameters, but also the
weights, of the French coins are rigidly determined by law, and as the
silver five-franc pieces always weigh exactly twenty-five grammes,
the united weight of forty of these coins is known to amount to one
kilogramme.

"Oh!" cried Ben Zoof; "to be able to do all this I see you must be rich
as well as learned."

With a good-natured laugh at the orderly's remark, the meeting adjourned
for a few hours. By the appointed time the engineer had finished his
task, and with all due care had prepared a cubic decimeter of the
material of the comet.

"Now, gentlemen," said Professor Rosette, "we are in a position to
complete our calculation; we can now arrive at Gallia's attraction,
density, and mass."

Everyone gave him his complete attention.

"Before I proceed," he resumed, "I must recall to your minds Newton's
general law, 'that the attraction of two bodies is directly proportional
to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the square
of their distances.'"

"Yes," said Servadac; "we remember that."

"Well, then," continued the professor, "keep it in mind for a
few minutes now. Look here! In this bag are forty five-franc
pieces—altogether they weigh exactly a kilogramme; by which I mean that
if we were on the earth, and I were to hang the bag on the hook of the
steelyard, the indicator on the dial would register one kilogramme. This
is clear enough, I suppose?"

As he spoke the professor designedly kept his eyes fixed upon Ben Zoof.
He was avowedly following the example of Arago, who was accustomed
always in lecturing to watch the countenance of the least intelligent
of his audience, and when he felt that he had made his meaning clear to
him, he concluded that he must have succeeded with all the rest. In
this case, however, it was technical ignorance, rather than any lack
of intelligence, that justified the selection of the orderly for this
special attention.

Satisfied with his scrutiny of Ben Zoof's face, the professor went on.
"And now, gentlemen, we have to see what these coins weigh here upon
Gallia."