President G.H. Bondy rang the bell and stood up.
“Gentlemen,” he began, “I have the honour of opening this extraordinary general meeting of the Pacific Export Company. I would like to welcome everyone here and thank them for the contribution they make.”
“I also,” he continued with some emotion, “have the sad duty of giving you some tragic news. Captain Jan van Toch is no longer with us. Our founder, if I can call him that, the father of the great idea of establishing commercial contact with thousands of islands in the far Pacific, our first captain and enthusiastic fellow worker has died. He passed away at the start of this year on board our ship, Šárka, not far from Fanning Island after suffering a stroke while engaged in his duty.” (Bet he made a Hell of a fuss, poor man, thought Mister Bondy fleetingly.) “Let us now all stand up in honour of this mans bright memory.”
All present stood up with a scraping and clattering of chairs and then remained in formal silence, all of them united in the hope that this general meeting wouldn’t last too long. (Poor Vantoch, my friend, thought G.H. Bondy with sincere emotion. What does he look like now? I expect they put him on a plank and threw him into the sea - what a splash that must have made! He was certainly a man of great honour, and had such blue eyes . . . )
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he added briefly, “for showing such piety in memory of my personal friend, Captain van Toch. I now invite our director, Mister Volavka, to inform you of the economic prospects for PEC over the coming year. None of these figures are yet certain but I hope you won’t expect them too have changed too much by the end of the year. Mister Volavka.”
“Good afternoon,” Mister Volavka began, and off he went. “The state of the pearl market is very unsatisfactory. Pearl production last year was nearly twelve times higher than in 1925, which itself was a very good year, but now the price of pearls has begun a catastrophic decline, by as much as sixty five percent. Management has decided, therefore, not to put any of this years pearl harvest on the market and they will be kept in storage until demand has risen again. Unfortunately, pearls went out of fashion last autumn, clearly because they had sunk so low in price. Our Amsterdam branch has, at present, more than two hundred thousand pearls in stock which, for the time being, are next to impossible to sell.
“At the same time,” Mister Volavka purred on, “there has been a marked reduction in the number of pearls found this year. Many fisheries have had to be abandoned because production was too low. Fisheries discovered just two or three years ago seem to be more or less exhausted. It is for this reason that the management had decided to turn its attention to other fruits of the sea such as coral and shellfish. There has been some success in stimulating the market for coral jewellery and other ornaments, but even here coral from Italy is achieving greater success than that from the Pacific. The management is also studying the possibility of intensive fishing in the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean, where the main consideration is how to transport the fish from the Pacific to the European and American markets; results and findings so far are not very encouraging.
“On the other hand,” the director went on, his voice rising slightly, “our relatively high turnover suggests it might be profitable to diversify into other activities such as the export of textiles, enamel ware, wireless sets and gloves to the Pacific. islands. This business would be amenable to further development; although this year it is already showing a slight loss. there is of course no question of PEC paying any dividend to its shareholders at the end of the year; and the management would like to announce in advance that, on this occasion, it will renounce any commissions and bonuses . . . ”
There was a painful silence in the room. (It must have been like this on Fanning Island, thought G.H. Bondy. He died a true sailor, Vantoch. A good man. It’s a pity a decent chap like that had to die. And he wasn’t even that old . . . he was no older than I am . . . ) Dr. Hubka stood up to speak; and the minutes of the extraordinary general meeting of the Pacific Export Company continued thus:
It was nonetheless necessary, before the vote was held, to promise that shares of the Pacific Export Company would pay a dividend of at least ten percent this year from its reserves. The vote was then eighty-seven percent in favour of the Newt Syndicate and only thirteen percent against. As a result the management’s proposal was accepted. The Salamander Syndicate came into life. G.H. Bondy was congratulated.
“That was a very good speech, Mister Bondy,” old Sigi Weissberger praised. “Very good. And please, tell me, how did you get the idea?”
“How?” G.H. Bondy replied absent mindedly. “Actually, to tell you the truth Mister Weissberger, it was all because of old van Toch. He was always so fond of his newts - what would the poor man have said if we just let those tapa-boys of his die out or be killed?”
“Tapa-boys? What do you mean, tapa-boys?”
“All those vile newts. At least they’ll be treated decently now that they’re worth money. And we might as well use them to create a utopia as the horrors are no good for anything else.”
“I don’t see what you mean,” Mr. Weissberger said. “Have you ever actually seen one of the newts, Mr. Bondy? I don’t really know what they’re like. What do they look like?”
“I’m afraid I really can’t tell you, Mr. Weissberger. How should I know what a newt looks like? Do you think I have the time to bother about what they look like? I’m just glad we’ve got the Newt Syndicate sorted out.”