the Solomons.
That's a lot better than having to be civil to people who worry the soul
out of you, are always in the way at sea, and a beastly nuisance in
port. Why, do you know what old Miss Weidermann did at Manono, in Samoa,
when we were there buying yams three months ago?"

"No; what did she do?"

"Got the skipper and myself into a howling mess through her infernal
interference; and if the chiefs and old Mataafa himself had not come to
our help there would have been some shooting, and this firm could never
have sent another ship to Manono again. It makes me mad when I think of
it--the silly old bundle of propriety and feminine spite."

"Tell me all about it, Otway. 'Twill do you good, I can see, to unburden
yourself of some of your bad temper. Shut that door, and we'll have a
brandy-and-soda together."

"Well," said Otway, "this is what occurred. I was ashore in the village,
buying and weighing the yams, the skipper was lending me a hand, and
everything was going on bully, when Mataafa and his chiefs sent an
invitation to us to come up to his house and drink kava. Of course such
an invitation from the native point of view was a great honour; and
then, besides that, it was good business to keep in with old Mataafa,
who had just given the Germans a thrashing at Vailele, and was as proud
as a dog with two tails. So, although I hate kava, I accepted the
invitation with 'many expressions of pleasure,' and felt sure that as
the old fellow knew me of old, and I knew he wanted to buy some rifles,
that I should get the bulk of a bag of sovereigns his mongrel, low-down
American secretary was carrying around. So oft went the skipper and I,
letting the yams stand over till we returned; the barque was lying about
a mile off the beach. Mataafa was very polite to us, and during the kava
drinking I found out that he had about three hundred sovereigns, and
wanted to see the Martini-Henrys we had on board. Of course I told him
that it would be a serious business for the ship if he gave us
away--imprisonment in a dreadful dungeon in Fiji, if not hanging at the
yard-arm or a man-of-war--and the old cock winked his eye and laughed.
Then, as time was valuable, we at once concocted a plan to get the
rifles--fifty--ashore without making too much of a show. Well, among
some of the women present there were two great swells, one was the
_taupo_, or town maid, of Palaulae in Savaii, and the other was a niece
of Mataafa himself. These two,