s not a pure man in his relations with women_, _etc._

How do you know that? Is this the nature of conversation in that house
on Beretania Street which the cabman envied, driving past?--racy details
of the misconduct of the poor peasant priest, toiling under the cliffs of
Molokai?

Many have visited the station before me; they seem not to have heard the
rumour. When I was there I heard many shocking tales, for my informants
were men speaking with the plainness of the laity; and I heard plenty of
complaints of Damien. Why was this never mentioned? and how came it to
you in the retirement of your clerical parlour?

But I must not even seem to deceive you. This scandal, when I read it in
your letter, was not new to me. I had heard it once before; and I must
tell you how. There came to Samoa a man from Honolulu; he, in a public-
house on the beach, volunteered the statement that Damien had "contracted
the disease from having connection with the female lepers"; and I find a
joy in telling you how the report was welcomed in a public-house. A man
sprang to his feet; I am not at liberty to give his name, but from what I
heard I doubt if you would care to have him to dinner in Beretania
Street. "You miserable little -------" (here is a word I dare not print,
it would so shock your ears). "You miserable little ------," he cried,
"if the story were a thousand times true, can't you see you are a million
times a lower ----- for daring to repeat it?" I wish it could be told of
you that when the report reached you in your house, perhaps after family
worship, you had found in your soul enough holy anger to receive it with
the same expressions; ay, even with that one which I dare not print; it
would not need to have been blotted away, like Uncle Toby's oath, by the
tears of the recording angel; it would have been counted to you for your
brightest righteousness. But you have deliberately chosen the part of
the man from Honolulu, and you have played it with improvements of your
own. The man from Honolulu--miserable, leering creature--communicated
the tale to a rude knot of beach-combing drinkers in a public-house,
where (I will so far agree with your temperance opinions) man is not
always at his noblest; and the man from Honolulu had himself been
drinking--drinking, we may charitably fancy, to excess. It was to your
"Dear Brother, the Reverend H. B. Gage," that you chose to communicate
the sickening story; and the blue ribbo