s "_Kanaka_" of himself.
It is a term of contempt. He might call his fellow so, but only as
an American negro says "nigger."

I looked at him closely. Some gesture, the suggested slant of his
brows, the thin lips, reminded me of a certain "son of Ah Cum" who
guided me into disaster in Canton, saying, "Mis'r Rud Kippeling he
go one time befo'."

"Your name?" I asked in hope of confirmation.

"O Lalala," he replied, while the smile that started in his eyes was
killed by his tightening lips. "I am French, for my grandfather was
of Annam under the tri-color, and my mother of Tahiti-iti."

Now fourteen-handed poker, with O Lalala as instructor to those
ignorant of the game, the code of which was written by a United
States diplomat, appealed to me as more than a passing of the time.
It would be an episode in the valley. My patriotism was stimulated.
I called the governor aside.

"This poker," I said, "is not like ecarte or baccarat. It is a study
of character, a matching of minds, a thing we call bluff, we
Americans. These poor Marquesans must have some fun. Let him do it!
No harm can come of it. It is far to Paris, where the laws are made."

The governor turned to O Lalala.

"No stakes!" he said.

"_Mais, non!_ Not a _sou_!" the lame man promised. "We will use only
matches for counters. _Merci, merci, Monsieur l'Administrateur!_ You
are very good. Please, will you give me now the note to Ah You?"

As he limped away with it, the governor poured me an inch of absinthe.

"_Sapristi!_" he exclaimed. "O Lalala! O, la, la, la!" He burst into
laughter. "He will play ze bloff?"

I spent that evening with Kriech, the German trader of Taka-Uka.
Over our Hellaby beef and Munich beer we talked of copra and the
beautiful girls of Buda-Pesth, of the contemplated effort of the
French government to monopolize the island trade by subsidizing a
corporation, and of the incident of the afternoon.

"The _Herr Doktor_ is new," said Kriech, with a wag of his head.
"That O Lalala! I have heard that that poker iss very dansherous.
That Prince Hanoi of Papeite lose his tam headt to a Chinaman.
Something comes of this foolishnesses!"

At midnight I had again gained the House of the Golden Bed and had
lain down to sleep when on the breeze from up the valley there came
a strangely familiar sound to my upper ear. I sat up, listening. In
the dark silence, with no wind to rustle the breadfruit and
cocoanut-trees, and only the brook faintly