three o'clock
Though the labor was not very hard , considering that gravity had as yet scarcely made itself felt , M'Nicholl and Ardan were not sorry to have their little joke at Barbican 's expense . The Frenchman began humming '' _ Aliquandoque bonus dormitat Homerus , _ '' to a tune from _ Orphée aux Enfers _ , and the Captain said something about the Philadelphia Highway Commissioners who pave a street one day , and tear it up the next to lay the gas pipes . But his friends ' humor was all lost on Barbican , who was so wrapped up in his work that he probably never heard a word they said . Towards three o'clock every preparation was made , every possible precaution taken , and now our bold adventurers had nothing more to do than watch and wait . The Projectile was certainly approaching the Moon . It had by this time turned over considerably under the influence of attraction , but its own original motion still followed a decidedly oblique direction . The consequence of these two forces might possibly be a tangent , line approaching the edge of the Moon 's disc .