from China, and the second officer and the surgeon
came by, talking animatedly.

"Oh, yus," said the seaman, chuckling, "'e wuz 'auled out finally. The
beggar 'ad 'id 'imself good and proper this time. 'E wuz in the
linen-closet, and 'ad disguised 'imself as a bundle o' bloomin'
barth-towels. 'E wuz a reg'lar grand Turk, 'e wuz. Blow me, if you'd
'a' knowed 'im from a bale of 'em, 'e wuz so wrapped up in 'em. 'E
almost 'ad us 'ull down this time. The blighter made a bit of a
row, and said as 'ow he just could n't 'elp stowin' aw'y every boat
for T'iti."

"He's a bally nut," said the surgeon. "I say, though, he did take me
back to Sunday school."

I recalled a man who walked the streets of San Francisco carrying a
small sign in his upraised hand, "Christ has come!" He looked neither
to the right nor the left, but bore his curious announcement among the
crowds downtown, which smiled jestingly at him, or looked frightened
at the message. If many had believed him, the panic would have been
illimitable. He was dressed in a brown cassock, and looked like the
blue-eyed man who had been refused passage to my destination. Probably,
that American in the toga and sandals, exiled from the island he loved
so well, had a message for the Tahitians or others of the Polynesian
tribes of the South Seas; Essenism, maybe, or something to do with
virginal beards and long hair, or sandals and the simple life. I
wished he were with us.

We were in the Golden Gate now, that magnificent opening in the
California shores, riven in the eternal conflict of land and water,
and the rending of which made the bay of San Francisco the mightiest
harbor of America. Before our bows lay the immense expanse of the
mysterious Pacific.

The second officer was directing sailors who were snugging down
the decks.

"What did the queer fellow want to go to Tahiti for?" I asked him.

He regarded me a moment in the stolid way of seamen.

"The blighter likes to live on bananas and breadfruit and that kind
of truck," he replied. "The French won't let 'im st'y there. 'E's
too bloomin' nyked. 'E's a nyture man. They chysed 'im out, and
every steamer 'e tries to stow 'imself aw'y. 'E's a bleedin' trial
to these ships."

That was puzzling. Did not these natives of Tahiti themselves wear
little clothing? Who were they to object to a white man doffing the
superfluities of dress in a climate where breadfruit and bananas
grow? Or the French, the governors of Tahit