coral remains an untrodden world of the Never-Never to me, though I have seen it, as it were, from afar.
I
remain and have remained for thirty-five years a debtor on account of
coral. It is a debt I shall never repay, for I owe it to the dead. When
I was young I dealt in coral, and one of my supplying firms had its
offices and works at Torre del Grecco, by the foot of Vesuvius. At the
last great eruption of that volcano a good sum of money stood to the
credit of my friends of Torre del Grecco. I was never called on to pay
it, though I did my best to get in touch with some surviving member of
the family. All had gone in an instant. I like to think that only a
Vesuvius could stop me from paying my just debts.
