ung it on a peg behind the door. Then
he exchanged the royal cloak for the dressing-gown, dropped into his
chair at the head of the table with a deep sigh and started to fill his
pipe.

"Well," asked Polynesia quietly, "how did you find the baby?"

"The baby?" he murmured--his thoughts still seemed to be very far
away--"Ah yes. The baby was much better, thank you--It has cut its
second tooth."

Then he was silent again, staring dreamily at the ceiling through a
cloud of tobacco-smoke; while we all sat round quite still, waiting.

"We were wondering, Doctor," said I at last,--"just before you came
in--when you would be starting home again. We will have been on this
island seven months to-morrow."

The Doctor sat forward in his chair looking rather uncomfortable.

"Well, as a matter of fact," said he after a moment, "I meant to speak
to you myself this evening on that very subject. But it's--er--a little
hard to make any one exactly understand the situation. I am afraid that
it would be impossible for me to leave the work I am now engaged on....
You remember, when they first insisted on making me king, I told you it
was not easy to shake off responsibilities, once you had taken them up.
These people have come to rely on me for a great number of things. We
found them ignorant of much that white people enjoy. And we have, one
might say, changed the current of their lives considerably. Now it is a
very ticklish business, to change the lives of other people. And whether
the changes we have made will be, in the end, for good or for bad, is
our lookout."

He thought a moment--then went on in a quieter, sadder voice:

"I would like to continue my voyages and my natural history work; and I
would like to go back to Puddleby--as much as any of you. This is March,
and the crocuses will be showing in the lawn... . But that which I
feared has come true: I cannot close my eyes to what might happen if I
should leave these people and run away. They would probably go back to
their old habits and customs: wars, superstitions, devil-worship and
what not; and many of the new things we have taught them might be put to
improper use and make their condition, then, worse by far than that in
which we found them.... They like me; they trust me; they have come to
look to me for help in all their problems and troubles. And no man wants
to do unfair things to them who trust him.... And then again, I like
THEM. They are, as it were, my childr