“Neither,” said Archie.
“How do you know?”
“I just guess at it.”
“But you must have something to go by in your guessing. I wonder how much a million dollars in gold would weigh!”
“If it was in eagles, it wouldn’t fall very far short of thirty-five hundred pound, avoirdupois,” said Archie.
“How much?” cried both the boys, opening their eyes wide with amazement.
Archie repeated his statement, adding:
“You know that such articles as gold, silver and precious stones are weighed by Troy weight. If you could put a hundred thousand gold eagles (that would be just a million dollars) on one side of a jeweller’s scales, it would take a four thousand pound weight on the other to balance them.”[A]
“Well, there’s no such weight in that rickety old wagon,” said Eugene, as soon as he had recovered from his surprise. “It wouldn’t hold it up. It must be in greenbacks.”