"In regard to myself," answered Dean Toodrink, "when I presented myself at the stores in High Street in the name of Major Donellan I found a large man in black clothes, wearing a high hat, with a white apron, which was short enough to show his high boots. When I asked him for information in the matter he informed me that the South Star had arrived with a full cargo from Newfoundland and that he was ready to furnish me with a fresh stock of codfish on account of Messrs. Ardronell & Co." "And," answered the former counsellor of the Dutch Indies, always a little sceptical, "it would be much better to buy a load of codfish than to throw one's money into the ice-water of the North." "This is not at all the question," says Major Donellan, with a short and high voice. "The question is not the codfish, but the Polar region." "Americans ought to stand on their heads," said Dean Toodrink, laughing at his own remark. "That will make them catch cold," finally said Col. Karkof. "The question is not there," said Major Donellan. "One thing only is certain, that for some reason or another America, represented by the N.P.P.A. (remark the word 'practical') wants to buy a surface of 407 square miles around the North Pole, a surface which is actually (remark the word 'actually') pierced by the eighty-fourth degree of latitude." "We know it, Major Donellan, and much more," said Jan Harald. "But what we do not know is how the said company will make use of those countries or waters, if they are waters, from a commercial standpoint." "This is not the question," answered for the third time Major Donellan. "A power wants to purchase with money a large part of the globe which, by its geographical situation, seems to belong especially to England"-"to Russia," said Col. Karkof; "to Holland," said Jacques Jansen; "to Sweden-Norway," said Jan Harald; "to Denmark," said Eric Baldenak.