12/23 " With a swift dip of his hand into his inside coat-pocket he scattered out in a wealth of profusion on the cabin table all the papers, sealed and stamped, that he had collected in forty-five years of voyaging, the latest date of which was five years back. "What I ask is, cash payment in full the first of each month, sixty dollars a month gold--" "Oodles and oodles of it, gold and gold and better than gold, in cask and chest, in cask and chest, a fathom under the sand," the Ancient Mariner assured him in beneficent cackles. "Kings, principalities and powers!--all of us, the least of us. And plenty more, my gentlemen, plenty more. |