"They are generous when they have determined to get a thing," smiled the elder Pulsifer, "and they have determined to get the Varian inventions. After all, you see, you can withdraw gracefully from negotiations with Washington. Nothing has been actually accomplished yet, and as matters have only reached an experimental stage nobody is compromised."
"See here, gentlemen," asked Varian suddenly, as if his mind had been fixed on this question all the time Pulsifer had been speaking, "how much money has this government got to spend in cold cash?"
"Why, my dear sir, what a question——"
"Answer me!"
"Well, if you must know—though it is wholly foreign to our discussion—I suppose they could raise a war fund to-morrow of seventy million dollars, to be raised by loans to a billion dollars and a half."
"They could do all this in two days?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Well, you go back to your baron and tell him that if his government worked for ninety days and raised ninety times ninety millions they would still be a million miles away from buying Henry Varian to betray his government!"
"You are insane!"