He gave the business reality, colouring it with details relevant and irrelevant, anecdotes and wayside incidents: he was fluent, elaborate, explicit throughout. They sank five wells, he said, "at the angles of this irregular pentagon you see here on the map, outlined in blue. These red circles are the wells." Four of the wells "came in tremendous," but they had managed to get them sealed after wasting--he was "sorry to think how many thousand barrels of oil." The fifth well was so enormous that they had not been able to seal it at the time of the speaker's departure for America. "But I had a cablegram this morning," he added, "letting me know they've managed to do it at last. Here is, the cablegram." He handed Richard a form signed "Antonio Moliterno." "Now, to go back to what I said about not `daring' to speak of this in Naples," he continued, smiling. "The fear is financial, not physical." The knowledge of the lucky strike, he explained, must be kept from the "Neapolitan money-sharks." A third of the land so rich in oil already belonged to the Moliterno estates, but it was necessary to obtain possession of the other two thirds "before the secret leaks into Naples." So far, it was safe, the peasants of Basilicata being "as medieval a lot as one could wish." He related that these peasants thought that the devils hiding inside the mountains had been stabbed by the drills, and that the oil was devils' blood. "You can see some of the country people hanging about, staring at a well, in this kodak, though it's not a very good one." He put into Richard's hand a small, blurred photograph showing a spouting well with an indistinct crowd standing in an irregular semicircle before it. "Is this the Basilicatan peasant costume?" asked Richard, indicating a figure in the foreground, the only one revealed at all definitely. "It looks more oriental. Isn't the man wearing a fez?" "Let me see," responded Mr. Corliss very quickly. "Perhaps I gave you the wrong picture. Oh, no," he laughed easily, holding the kodak closer to his eyes; "that's all right: it is a fez. That's old Salviati, our engineer, the man I spoke of who'd worked in Persia, you know; he's always worn a fez since then. Got in the habit of it out there and says he'll never give it up. Moliterno's always chaffing him about it. He's a faithful old chap, Salviati." "I see." Lindley looked thoughtfully at the picture, which the other carelessly returned to his hand. "There seems to be a lot of oil there."