If we save the dock, we will receive about half _her_
value. The dock is worth a million pounds, about five million dollars.
So each man would receive for his portion, in event we salved the dock
about... two hundred thousand dollars... a fortune."
A profound silence fell over the diners. They hunched forward, staring
fixedly out of sunburned, gross, dissipated faces. Longshores-men, the
scum of London, who had worked all their lives for half a pound a week,
gaped at the idea of two hundred thousand dollars.
Somebody repeated the sum hoarsely. Suddenly they raised an uproar.
"We'll take 'er, sir!" "We'll tow th' dock, sor!" "We weel tow zee dock
to zee moon for zat!" "Sphend our loives and die rich min!"
The strong imagination of wealth ran around the table like wine.
Deschaillon responded first.
"Voila! One meellion francs! I weel buy a pond near Paris and raise bull
frogs. I weel buy a decoration and be a knight. I weel----"
"I'll start an undertaker shop!" glowed Galton, "and my old mother shall
have a bit of ground to raise flowers."
"Glory be!" chanted Hogan, "Oi'll wear a tall hat, a long-tailed coat
and carry a silver-headed cane, and thin Susie Maloney and Bridget
O'Malley and Peggy O'Brien will be sorry they iver tossed up their saucy
noses at th' love o' an honest lad!"
"I'll own a kennel of bulldogs," growled Mulcher, "and 'ave a fight
hev'ry day.
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