"Not at all; why, this is absurd! you are saying that the whole war was for nothing."
"What better than nothing was the end of it? We paid Mexico for the territory she yielded to us, didn't we, uncle Rolf?"
"Yes."
"How much?"
"Twenty millions, I believe."
"And what do you suppose the war has cost?"
"Hum I don't know a hundred."
"A hundred million! Besides how much besides! And don't you suppose, uncle Rolf, that for half of that sum Mexico would have sold us peaceably what she did in the end?"
"It is possible I think it is very likely."
"What was the fruit of the war, Captain Rossitur?"