le) would refuse to use the boat, and he, Kaibuka, would be regarded
as a hog--a man devoid of gratitude to the white man who had been kind
to and had not cheated them.

"Take the money, Mr. Sherry," said Niabon in English; "they are glad to
get the boat; and if I had said you wanted five, instead of one hundred
dollars, they would give it. I would _make_ them give it."

"Very well, Niabon. I'll take it. But as it is more than I ought to
expect under the circumstances, I will give them half a tierce of
tobacco as a _mea alofa_ (a gift of friendship).

"That means that you give them a hundred and twenty-five dollars' worth
of tobacco as a present," she said, with an amused smile, "and so you
sell your beautiful boat for seventy-five dollars."

"Never mind my extravagance, Niabon," I said, in the same spirit; "the
one hundred and twenty-five pounds of tobacco in the half-tierce, which
only cost me a quarter of a dollar a pound, is better given away to
these people than left here to rot."

"Indeed it is," she replied, as she watched Tepi and Pai roll out the
half-tierce of the beloved tobacco from my trade-room into that in which
we were sitting; "these people here will never forget you."

As soon as old Kaibuka and the other head man had left--each after
taking a stiff glass of grog--and the house was again quiet, Niabon,
Tepi, and I set to work to take stock, they calling out the various
articles of my trade goods whilst I made out the list. We worked at this
throughout the night, had an early breakfast, and then went at it again,
and by nine o'clock the work was over, and I knew how I stood with my
employers financially.

It was pretty satisfactory, considering the short time I had been on the
island; for with my salary of ten pounds a month, and the five per cent,
commission I was allowed on all the goods I sold, there were over three
hundred pounds due to me. Then, in addition to my cash takings, which
came to over three thousand dollars, I had bought over a hundred tons
of copra (dried coco-nut) at a very low price, paying for it with trade
goods--muskets, rifles, ammunition, tobacco, and liquor--on which latter
article my esteemed employers made something like a thousand per cent,
profit. Of course I had had a big pull over Krause, whose stock of trade
was almost exhausted when I landed, whilst I had come ashore with half
a schooner-load. But apart from this, it was a fillip to my vanity to
think that even if