n the skin, white as alabaster, a bit
of tattooing. It is the figure of a young girl, somewhat scantily
robed, with long streaming tresses: hair, contour, countenance,
everything done in the deepest indigo.

"Some old sweetheart?" suggests Crozier.

"It is."

"But _she_ can't be a Sandwich Island belle. You've never been there?"

"No, she isn't. She's a little Chilena, whose acquaintance I made last
spring, while we lay at Valparaiso. Grummet, the cutter's coxswain, did
the tattoo for me, as we came up the Pacific. He hadn't quite time to
finish it as you see. There was to be a picture of the Chilian flag
over her head, and underneath the girl's name, or initials. I'm now
glad they didn't go in."

"But what the deuce has all this to do with the Sandwich Islands?"

"Only, that, there, I intended to have the thing taken out again.
Grummet tells me he can't do it, but that the Kanakas can. He says
they've got some trick for extracting the stain, without scarring the
skin, or only very slightly."

"But why should you care about removing it? I acknowledge tattooing is
not nice, on the epidermis of a gentleman; and I've met scores, like
yourself, sorry for having submitted to it. After all, what does it
signify? Nobody need ever see it, unless you wish them to."

"There's where you mistake. Somebody _might_ see it, without my
wishing--sure to see it, if ever I get--"

"What?"

"Spliced."

"Ah! Inez?"

"Yes; Inez. Now you understand why I'd like to spend a day or two among
the South Sea Islanders. If I can't get the thing rubbed out, I'll be
in a pretty mess about it. I know Inez would be indulgent in a good
many ways; but when she sees that blue image on my arm, she'll look
black enough. And what am I to say to her? I told her, she was the
first sweetheart I ever had; as you know, Ned, a little bit of a fib.
Only a white one; for the Chilena was but a mere fancy, gone out of my
mind long ago; as, no doubt, I am out of hers. The question is, how's
her picture to be got out of my skin? I'd give something to know."

"If that's all your trouble, you needn't be at any expense--except what
you may tip old Grummet. You say he has not completed the portrait of
your Chilena. That's plain enough, looking at the shortness of her
skirts. Now let him go on, and lengthen them a little. Then finish by
putting a Spanish flag over her head, instead of the Chilian, as you
intended, and underneath the in