He had been neither trader nor investor. He had been a loser. Not only
that, he had spent months staring into his monitor, living on the
Internet, reading the Wall St. Journal every day and Barrons every
weekend, and dreaming about how he would invest $450,000. He asked
himself how he could have been so stupid, so inept.

He went to a Korean bar. Gorgeous women paraded continuously past his
table. When he tired of sitting with one, the next slid in against him
and put her hand on his leg. "Buy me drink? You want pu-pu's?" The
music was loud, hypnotic, non-stop. They danced. They accepted
MasterCard. Joe staggered home with further losses.

He was in deepest day-after shambles when the phone rang.

"Ugh, hlo?"

"Hi, Joe."

"Max! How ya doin', buddy?"

"Fine. I'm at the airport."

"Great! Come on over, or are you just flying through?"

"I thought I'd stay a couple of days. Kate told me you were here."

Half an hour later, there he was. "Max, you look terrific . . . growing
up, man, getting stronger."

"Thanks, you don't look so great," Max said.

"Nah, long night, never mind. A walk, rice and eggs, it will all be
history." Max put his pack down in a corner. "That's not the lightest
looking pack."

"It has everything I own in it. Carried it all over New Zealand."

"Yeah? Both islands? What do they call them?"

"North and South," Max said, smiling.

"Right, right. Always wanted to go there, supposed to be a great
place."

"The Kiwi's, man . . . awesome!" Max was short with wide shoulders and
large dark brown eyes. He had filled out since his school days, but he
had the same earnest expression. Max had gotten through the University
of Vermont, studying this and that, anthropology mostly, but he'd gone
walkabout instead of buckling down to graduate school. Joe had been
glad at the time, and now he could see why: Max was calmer, more sure
of himself after a couple of years of knocking around.

"Let's go get some breakfast."

"Lunch," Max said.

At the coffee shop on King Street, Joe asked, "Remember that week we
spent on Kauai? That was a good time."

"Yeah, the Na Pali coast," Max said.

"Some place," Joe said. "The whole damn island should be a world park."

"I remember that story you told us about the leper who wouldn't go to
the colony."

"Koolau," Joe said. "He defeated the British Navy. They couldn't get
him. He warned them, too. One sick guy with a rifle against marines and
cannon--he ki