it. Imagine my surprise when he said
it was a masterpiece, and offered me thirty thousand francs.
I dare say he would have paid more, but frankly I was so taken
aback that I lost my head; I accepted the offer before I was
able to collect myself.'"

Then Monsieur Cohen said an admirable thing.

"I wish that poor Strickland had been still alive. I wonder
what he would have said when I gave him twenty-nine thousand
eight hundred francs for his picture."

Chapter XLIX

I lived at the Hotel de la Fleur, and Mrs. Johnson, the
proprietress, had a sad story to tell of lost opportunity.
After Strickland's death certain of his effects were sold by
auction in the market-place at Papeete, and she went to it
herself because there was among the truck an American stove
she wanted. She paid twenty-seven francs for it.

"There were a dozen pictures," she told me, "but they were
unframed, and nobody wanted them. Some of them sold for as
much as ten francs, but mostly they went for five or six.
Just think, if I had bought them I should be a rich woman now."

But Tiare Johnson would never under any circumstances have
been rich. She could not keep money. The daughter of a
native and an English sea-captain settled in Tahiti, when I
knew her she was a woman of fifty, who looked older, and of
enormous proportions. Tall and extremely stout, she would
have been of imposing presence if the great good-nature of her
face had not made it impossible for her to express anything
but kindliness. Her arms were like legs of mutton, her
breasts like giant cabbages; her face, broad and fleshy, gave
you an impression of almost indecent nakedness, and vast chin
succeeded to vast chin. I do not know how many of them there were.
They fell away voluminously into the capaciousness of her bosom.
She was dressed usually in a pink Mother Hubbard,
and she wore all day long a large straw hat. But when she let
down her hair, which she did now and then, for she was vain of
it, you saw that it was long and dark and curly; and her eyes
had remained young and vivacious. Her laughter was the most
catching I ever heard; it would begin, a low peal in her throat,
and would grow louder and louder till her whole vast
body shook. She loved three things -- a joke, a glass of
wine, and a handsome man. To have known her is a privilege.

She was the best cook on the island, and she adored good food.
From morning till night you saw her sitting on a low