these means of livelihood."

"Tit you effer vind a nokket?" inquired the inarticulate German,
eagerly.

"No. I have been most kinds of fool in my time," returned Loudon, "but
not the gold-digging variety. Every man has a sane spot somewhere."

"Well, then," suggested some one, "did you ever smuggle opium?"

"Yes, I did," said Loudon.

"Was there money in that?"

"All the way," responded Loudon.

"And perhaps you bought a wreck?" asked another.

"Yes, sir," said Loudon.

"How did that pan out?" pursued the questioner.

"Well, mine was a peculiar kind of wreck," replied Loudon. "I don't
know, on the whole, that I can recommend that branch of industry."

"Did she break up?" asked some one.

"I guess it was rather I that broke down," says Loudon. "Head not big
enough."

"Ever try the blackmail?" inquired Havens.

"Simple as you see me sitting here!" responded Dodd.

"Good business?"

"Well, I'm not a lucky man, you see," returned the stranger. "It ought
to have been good."

"You had a secret?" asked the Glasgow man.

"As big as the State of Texas."

"And the other man was rich?"

"He wasn't exactly Jay Gould, but I guess he could buy these islands if
he wanted."

"Why, what was wrong, then? Couldn't you get hands on him?"

"It took time, but I had him cornered at last; and then----"

"What then?"

"The speculation turned bottom up. I became the man's bosom friend."

"The deuce you did!"

"He couldn't have been particular, you mean?" asked Dodd pleasantly.
"Well, no; he's a man of rather large sympathies."

"If you're done talking nonsense, Loudon," said Havens, "let's be
getting to my place for dinner."

Outside, the night was full of the roaring of the surf. Scattered lights
glowed in the green thicket. Native women came by twos and threes out of
the darkness, smiled and ogled the two whites, perhaps wooed them with
a strain of laughter, and went by again, bequeathing to the air a
heady perfume of palm-oil and frangipani blossom. From the club to Mr.
Havens's residence was but a step or two, and to any dweller in Europe
they must have seemed steps in fairyland. If such an one could but have
followed our two friends into the wide-verandahed house, sat down
with them in the cool trellised room, where the wine shone on the
lamp-lighted tablecloth; tasted of their exotic food--the raw fish, the
breadfruit, the cooked bananas, the roast pig served with the inimitable
miti, and that king of