Usually the large hall of the club was decorated with weapons of all sorts appropriate to the noble profession of its members. It was quite an artillery museum. Even the furniture itself, the chairs and tables, and couches, was of the pattern of the murderous engines which had sent to a better world so many worthy people whose secret desire had been to die of old age.
On this occasion the furniture had been removed. This was not a warlike assembly; it was an industrial and pacific assembly over which Barbicane was to preside. The hall was full to suffocation, and the crowd of those who could not get in stretched half across Union Square.
The members of the Gun Club who had held the first shares in the company had secured places round the platform. Amongst them, even more triumphant than usual, were Colonel Bloomsberry, Tom Hunter with the wooden legs, and the brisk Bilsby. A comfortable armchair had been reserved for Mrs. Scorbitt, as was only right, considering that she was the chief proprietor of the Polar freehold; and there were a number of other lady shareholders belonging to all classes of the city, whose bright bonnets, and hats, and feathers, and ribbons, were a welcome relief to the black coats of the noisy men that crowded under the glazed cupola of the hall.
The immense majority of shareholders were not so much supporters as personal friends of the directors. But among the crowd were the representatives of the rival companies who had bid against Forster at the auction sale, and who now had taken shares in order to be qualified to vote and make mischief at the meetings. It can be easily imagined with what intense curiosity they awaited Barbicane’s address, which would probably throw some light on the way in which the North Pole was to be reached. Perhaps there was a difficulty there even greater than working the mines? If any objections could be made we may be sure that Baldenak, Karkof, Jansen, and Harald were quite equal to making them. And the Major and his invaluable Todrin would lose no chance of driving Barbicane behind his last entrenchments.
It was eight o’clock. The hall, the side rooms, and the corridors of the Gun Club glowed with Edison lamps. Ever since the doors had been opened to the public there had been an incessant uproar, but as soon as the directors appeared all was silent.
At a table covered with a black cloth, on the platform, Barbicane, Nicholl, and J. T. Maston took up their positions in the fullest glare of the light. As they did so three cheers, punctuated by the needful “hips,” broke forth, and were echoed in the adjacent streets. Solemnly J. T. Maston and Captain Nicholl sat down in all the plenitude of their celebrity. Then Barbicane, who had remained standing, put his right hand in his trouser pocket, his left thumb in his waistcoat pocket, and began to speak as follows:—
“Fellow-shareholders,—The directorate of the North Polar Practical Association have called this meeting in the rooms of the Gun Club, as they have something of importance to communicate to you.
“You have learnt from the newspapers that the object of our company is the opening up of the coal-fields of the North Pole, the concession of which we have obtained. The estate acquired in public auction is the property of the company, and the capital, which was all subscribed by the 11th of December last, enables us to enter at once on an enterprise which will produce a rate of interest unknown up to now in any commercial or industrial operation whatever.”
Here the first murmur of approval for a moment interrupted the orator.
“You are aware of how we came to discover that there were rich beds of coal, and also possibly of fossil ivory, in the circumpolar regions. The statements in the public press leave no doubt as to the existence of these coal strata.