et Jeremiah.

Ieremia was lighter-skinned than the Fitu-Ivans, as was natural in a
full-blooded Samoan. Educated by the missionaries, as lay teacher he had
served their cause well over in the cannibal atolls to the westward. As
a reward, he had been sent to the paradise of Fitu-Iva, where all were
or had been good converts, to gather in the backsliders. Unfortunately,
Ieremia had become too well educated. A stray volume of Darwin, a
nagging wife, and a pretty Fitu-Ivan widow had driven him into the ranks
of the backsliders. It was not a case of apostasy. The effect of Darwin
had been one of intellectual fatigue. What was the use of trying to
understand this vastly complicated and enigmatical world, especially
when one was married to a nagging woman? As Ieremia slackened in his
labours, the mission board threatened louder and louder to send him back
to the atolls, while his wife's tongue grew correspondingly sharper. Tui
Tulifau was a sympathetic monarch, whose queen, on occasions when he was
particularly drunk, was known to beat him. For political reasons--the
queen belonging to as royal stock as himself and her brother commanding
the army--Tui Tulifau could not divorce her, but he could and did
divorce Ieremia, who promptly took up with commercial life and the lady
of his choice. As an independent trader he had failed, chiefly because
of the disastrous patronage of Tui Tulifau. To refuse credit to that
merry monarch was to invite confiscation; to grant him credit was
certain bankruptcy. After a year's idleness on the beach, leremia had
become David Grief's trader, and for a dozen years his service had
been honourable and efficient, for Grief had proven the first man who
successfully refused credit to the king or who collected when it had
been accorded.

Ieremia looked gravely over the rims of his glasses when his employer
entered, gravely marked the place in the Bible and set it aside, and
gravely shook hands.

"I am glad you came in person," he said.

"How else could I come?" Grief laughed.

But Ieremia had no sense of humour, and he ignored the remark.

"The commercial situation on the island is damn bad," he said with great
solemnity and an unctuous mouthing of the many-syllabled words. "My
ledger account is shocking."

"Trade bad?"

"On the contrary. It has been excellent. The shelves are empty,
exceedingly empty. But----" His eyes glistened proudly. "But there are
many goods remaining in the storehouse;