“I did not succeed,” said Jansen.
“When I went,” said Todrin, “I found a fat man in a black coat and wearing a stove-pipe hat. He had on a white apron, and when I asked him about this affair, he told me that the South Star had just arrived from Newfoundland with a full cargo of fine cod, which he was prepared to sell me on advantageous terms on behalf of Messrs. Ardrinell and Co.”
“Eh! eh!” said the Councillor of the Dutch East Indies. “You had much better buy a full cargo of fine cod than throw your money into the Arctic Sea.”
“That’s not the question,” said the Major. “We are not talking of codfish, but of the Polar ice-cap—”
“Which,” said Todrin, “the codfish-man wants to wear.”
“It will give him influenza,” said the Russian.
“That is not the question,” said the Major. “For some reason or other, this North Polar Practical Association—mark the word ‘Practical,’ gentlemen—wishes to buy four hundred and seven thousand square miles round the North Pole, from the eighty-fourth—”
“We know all that,” said Professor Harald. “But what we want to know is, what do these people want to do with these territories, if they are territories, or these seas, if they are seas—”
“That is not the question,” said Donellan. “Here is a company proposing to purchase a portion of the globe which, by its geographical position, seems to belong to Canada.”
“To Russia,” said Karkof.