"Quit your kidding," said the "Gunner." "I ain't rich."
"What could you raise?" asked Capietro, who saw by the prisoner's expression of astonishment that the original bid was evidently out of the question.
"I might scrape up twenty grand," suggested Danny.
"What are grand?" demanded the Italian.
"Thousand—twenty thousand," explained the "Gunner."
"Poof!" cried Capietro. "That would not pay me for the trouble of keeping you until the money could be forwarded from America. Make it fifty thousand lire and it's a bargain."
"Fifty thousand lire? What's them?"
"A lire is an Italian coin worth about twenty cents in American money," explained Stabutch.
Danny achieved some rapid mental calculations before he replied; and when he had digested the result he had difficulty in repressing a smile, for he discovered that his offer of twenty thousand grand was actually twice what the Italian was now demanding. Yet he hesitated to agree too willingly. "That's ten thousand iron men," he said. "That's a lot of jack."
"Iron men? Jack? I do not understand," said Capietro.