"Naval supremacy and command of the seas. It's all here
right under your nose. I tell you, Munro, I could go to
Switzerland to-morrow, and I could say to them--`Look
here, you haven't got a seaboard and you haven't got a
port; but just find me a ship, and hoist your flag on it,
and I'll give you every ocean under heaven.' I'd sweep
the seas until there wasn't a match-box floating on
them. Or I could make them over to a limited company,
and join the board after allotment. I hold the salt
water in the cup of this hand, every drop of it."
His wife put her hands on his shoulder with
admiration in her eyes. I turned to knock out my pipe,
and grinned over the grate.
"Oh, you may grin," said he. (He was wonderfully
quick at spotting what you were doing.) "You'll grin a
little wider when you see the dividends coming in.
What's the value of that magnet?"
"A pound?"
"A million pounds. Not a penny under. And dirt
cheap to the nation that buys it. I shall let it go at
that, though I could make ten times as much if I held on.
I shall take it up to the Secretary of the Navy in a week
or two; and if he seems to be a civil deserving sort of
person I shall do business with him. It's not every day,
Munro, that a man comes into his office with the Atlantic
under one arm and the Pacific under the other. Eh,
what?"
I knew it would make him savage, but I lay back
in my chair and laughed until I was tired.
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