ely ignorant,"
like Shakspeare, and professed supreme contempt for all _savants_,
"people," said he, "who only score our points." He was, in short, a
Bohemian of the country of brains, adventurous but not an adventurer, a
harebrained fellow, a Phaeton running away with the horses of the sun, a
kind of Icarus with relays of wings. He had a wonderful facility for
getting into scrapes, and an equally wonderful facility for getting out
of them again, falling on his feet like a cat.

In short, his motto was, "Whatever it may cost!" and the love of the
impossible his "ruling passion," according to Pope's fine expression.

But this enterprising fellow had the defects of his qualities. Who risks
nothing wins nothing, it is said. Ardan often risked much and got
nothing. He was perfectly disinterested and chivalric; he would not have
signed the death-warrant of his worst enemy, and would have sold himself
into slavery to redeem a negro.

In France and Europe everybody knew this brilliant, bustling person. Did
he not get talked of ceaselessly by the hundred voices of Fame, hoarse
in his service? Did he not live in a glass house, taking the entire
universe as confidant of his most intimate secrets? But he also
possessed an admirable collection of enemies amongst those he had cuffed
and wounded whilst using his elbows to make a passage in the crowd.

Still he was generally liked and treated like a spoiled child. Every one
was interested in his bold enterprises, and followed them with uneasy
mind. He was known to be so imprudent! When some friend wished to stop
him by predicting an approaching catastrophe, "The forest is only burnt
by its own trees," he answered with an amiable smile, not knowing that
he was quoting the prettiest of Arabian proverbs.

Such was the passenger of the _Atlanta_, always in a bustle, always
boiling under the action of inward fire, always moved, not by what he
had come to do in America--he did not even think about it--but on
account of his feverish organisation. If ever individuals offered a
striking contrast they were the Frenchman Michel Ardan and the Yankee
Barbicane, both, however, enterprising, bold, and audacious, each in his
own way.

Barbicane's contemplation of his rival was quickly interrupted by the
cheers of the crowd. These cries became even so frantic and the
enthusiasm took such a personal form that Michel Ardan, after having
shaken a thousand hands in which he nearly left his ten finge