this to show you it isn't so easy to get at the wealth under the
sea as writers in Sunday newspaper supplements think it is."

"I believe you, Tom. And yet it seems a shame to have all those
millions going to waste, doesn't it?" And Ned spoke as a banker
and financial man, who is not happy unless money is earning
interest all the while.

"Well, a billion of dollars is a lot," Tom admitted. "And when
you think of all that have been sunk, say even in the last
hundred years, it amazes one. But still, all the gold and silver
was hidden in the earth before it was dug out, and now it's only
gone back where it came from, in a way. We got along before men
dug it out and coined it into money, and I guess we'll get along
when it's under water. No use worrying over the ocean treasures,
as far as I'm concerned."

"You're a hopeless proposition!" laughed Ned. "You'd never make
a banker, or a Napoleon of finance."

"That's why my father and I got you to look after our financial
affairs," and Tom smiled. "You're just the one--with your
interest-bearing mind--to keep us off the shoals of business
trouble."

"Yes, I suppose I can do that, while you and your father go on
inventing giant cannons, great searchlights, submarines, and
airships," conceded Ned. "But this, to me, did look like an easy
way of making money."