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 ............