The Purchase of the North Pole by Jules Verne

On the 22nd of December a general meeting was called of the shareholders of the North Polar Practical Association, to take place at the rooms of the Gun Club in Union Square. And the square itself was hardly large enough to hold the crowd.

Usually the large hall of the club was decorated with weapons of all sorts appropriate to the noble profession of its members. It was quite an artillery museum. Even the furniture itself, the chairs and tables, and couches, was of the pattern of the murderous engines which had sent to a better world so many worthy people whose secret desire had been to die of old age.