o much with wine as admiration; and his eyes drank in the huge
proportions of the other with delight. "You bet you did, and you bet
that I can see you doing it! By God, you're a man, and you can say I
said so."

"Too good of you, I'm sure," said Attwater.

"Did you--did you ever have crime here?" asked Herrick, breaking his
silence with a pungent voice.

"Yes," said Attwater, "we did."

"And how did you handle that, sir?" cried the eager captain.

"Well, you see, it was a queer case," replied Attwater. "It was a case
that would have puzzled Solomon. Shall I tell it you? yes?"

The captain rapturously accepted.

"Well," drawled Attwater, "here is what it was. I daresay you know two
types of natives, which may be called the obsequious and the sullen?
Well, one had them, the types themselves, detected in the fact; and one
had them together. Obsequiousness ran out of the first like wine out of
a bottle, sullenness congested in the second. Obsequiousness was all
smiles; he ran to catch your eye, he loved to gabble; and he had about a
dozen words of beach English, and an eighth-of-an-inch veneer of
Christianity. Sullens was industrious; a big down-looking bee. When he
was spoken to, he answered with a black look and a shrug of one
shoulder, but the thing would be done. I don't give him to you for a
model of manners; there was nothing showy about Sullens; but he was
strong and steady, and ungraciously obedient. Now Sullens got into
trouble; no matter how; the regulations of the place were broken, and he
was punished accordingly--without effect. So, the next day, and the
next, and the day after, till I began to be weary of the business, and
Sullens (I am afraid) particularly so. There came a day when he was in
fault again, for the--O perhaps the thirtieth time; and he rolled a dull
eye upon me, with a spark in it, and appeared to speak. Now the
regulations of the place are formal upon one point: we allow no
explanations; none are received, none allowed to be offered. So one
stopped him instantly, but made a note of the circumstance. The next day
he was gone from the settlement. There could be nothing more annoying;
if the labour took to running away, the fishery was wrecked. There are
sixty miles of this island, you see, all in length like the Queen's
highway; the idea of pursuit in such a place was a piece of
single-minded childishness, which one did not entertain. Two days later,
I made a discovery; it came in upon me