ght that now flooded room
and verandah from the lamp lit in the sitting-room. The finely-plaited
Manhiki hat held in his right hand seemed somewhat out of place with the
rest of his attire, and was evidently not much worn. Probably Felipe had
merely brought it for the occasion, as a symbol to us of his superior
tastes and ideas.

He shook hands with us all round, and then, at Lester's invitation,
followed us inside, and sat down cross-legged on the mats and
courteously awaited us to talk to him. The American surgeon offered him
a cigar, which he politely declined, and produced from the folds of
his _lava lava_ a bundle of banana-leaf cigarettes, filled with strong
tobacco. One of these, at a nod from the trader, he lit, and commenced
to smoke.

*****

In a few minutes we heard the crunching of the gravelled path under bare
feet, and then some three or four of the _aua-luma_--the kava-chewing
girls--ascended the steps and took up their position by the huge wooden
kava bowl. As the girls, under the careful supervision of the trader's
wife, prepared the drink, we fell into a general conversation.

"I wonder now," said the doctor to the trader, "that you, Lester, who,
by your own showing, are by no means infatuated with the dreamy monotony
of island life, can yet stay here, year after year, seeing nothing and
hearing nothing of the world that lies outside these lonely islands.
Have you no desire at all to go back again into the world?"

A faint movement--the index of some rapidly passing emotion--for a
moment disturbed the calm, placid features of Lester, as he answered
quietly: "No, doctor, I don't think it's likely I'll ever see the
outside world, as you call it, again. I've had my hopes and ambitions,
like every one else; but they didn't pan out as I expected,... and then
I became Lester the Trader, and as Lester the Trader I'll die, have
a whitey-brown crowd at my funeral; and, if you came here ten years
afterwards, the people couldn't even tell you where I was planted."

The doctor nodded. "Just so. Like all native races, their affections and
emotions are deep but transient--no better in that way than the average
American nigger."

The kava was finished now, and was handed round to us by the slender
graceful hands of the trader's little daughter. As Felipe, the last to
drink, handed back the _ipu_ to the girl, his eyes lit up, and he spoke
to our host, addressing him, native fashion, by his Christian name, and