B.C.

Co." in a row at least two feet high.

These were the initials of the Tropical Belt Coal Company, his employers--his late employers, to be precise.
According to the unnatural mysteries of the financial world, the T.B.
C.Company's capital having evaporated in the course of two years, the company went into liquidation--forced, I believe, not voluntary.

There was nothing forcible in the process, however.

It was slow; and while the liquidation--in London and Amsterdam--pursued its languid course, Axel Heyst, styled in the prospectus "manager in the tropics," remained at his post on Samburan, the No.