'Not only dazzling,' I said, 'but you should have more than money—our rights in Greenland; His Majesty might hesitate if it were made a mere question of money. He is like his grandfather, Christian IX. You know how he hated, crippled as Denmark was in 1864, to sell the Islands.'
'You would never pay the price.'
'Excellency,' I said, 'this is not a commercial transaction. If it were a commercial transaction, a matter of material profit, my Government would not have entrusted the matter to me, nor would I have accepted the task, without the counsel of men of business. Besides, commercially, at present, the Islands are of comparatively small value. I know that my country is as rich as it is generous. It is dealing with a small nation of similar principles to its own, and with an equal pride. Unless the price is preposterous, as there is no ordinary way of gauging the military value of these Islands to us, I shall not object. My Government does not wish me to haggle. And I am sure that you will not force me to do so by demanding an absurd price. You would not wish to shock a people prepared to be generous.'
He will ask $50,000,000, I thought; he knows better than anybody that we shall be at war with Germany in less than a year. I felt dizzy at the thought of losing the Gibraltar of the Caribbean! However, I consoled myself, while Mr. de Scavenius looked thoughtfully, pencil in hand, at a slip of paper. After all, I thought, the President, knowing what the Islands mean to us, will not balk at even $50,000,000. While Mr. [de] Scavenius wrote, I tried to feel like a man to whom a billion was of no importance.
He pushed the slip towards me, and I read:
'$30,000,000 dollars, expressed in Danish crowns.'
The crown was then equal to about twenty-six cents.
I said, 'There will be little difficulty about that; I consider it not unreasonable; but naturally, it may frighten some of my compatriots, who have not felt the necessity of considering international questions. You will give me a day or two?'
'The price is dazzling, I know,' he said.
'My country is more generous even than she is rich. The transaction must be completed before——'