“Orfle, sir. Why, as soon as you gets round the corner yonder, going to Brisbane, they call it the Coral Sea, and there you get the Great Barrier Reef, all made of this here stuff.”
“More of those great oysters,” said Carey. “I say, Bob, are they good to eat?”
“Not half bad, sir, as you shall say. They make first-rate soup, and that aren’t a thing to be sneezed at.”
“Then we shan’t starve,” said Carey, laughing.
“Starve, sir? No. I can see plenty of good fish to be had out o’ this lagoon.”
“But are these the oysters they gather for the mother-o’-pearl?” asked the doctor.
“Them’s those, sir, and it seems to me here’s a fortune to be made gathering of ’em. Why, they fetches sixty and seventy pound a ton, and the big uns’ll weigh perhaps ten or twelve pound a pair.”
“Then we must collect some, Carey, ready to take away with us when we go.”
“And that aren’t all, sir,” continued the old sailor; “when you come to open ’em you finds pearls inside ’em, some of ’em worth ever so much.”
“Oh, doctor, what a place we’ve come to,” said Carey, excitedly. “Isn’t it lucky we were wrecked?”