oscoe turned round: "There's something catchy about your
voice, Padre. I don't know what; but it's familiar like. You never was
on the Panama level, of course?"

"Never."

"Nor in Australia?"

"Yes, in 1876."

"I wasn't there then."

Roscoe grew a shade paler, but he was firm and composed. He was
determined to answer truthfully any question that was asked him,
wherever it might lead.

"Nor in Samoa?"

There was the slightest pause, and then the reply came:

"Yes, in Samoa."

"Not a missionary, by gracious! Not a mickonaree in Samoa?"

"No." He said nothing further. He did not feel bound to incriminate
himself.

"No? Well, you wasn't a beachcomber, nor trader, I'll swear. Was you
there in the last half of the Seventies? That's when I was there."

"Yes." The reply was quiet.

"By Jingo!" The man's face was puzzled. He was about to speak again; but
at that moment two river-drivers--boon companions, who had been hanging
about the door--urged him to come to the tavern. This distracted him. He
laughed, and said that he was coming, and then again, though with less
persistency, questioned Roscoe.. "You don't remember me, I suppose?"

"No, I never saw you, so far as I know, until yesterday."

"No? Still, I've heard your voice. It keeps swingin' in my ears; and I
can't remember.... I can't remember!... But we'll have a spin about it
again, Padre." He turned to the impatient men. "All right, bully-boys,
I'm comin'."

At the door he turned and looked again at Roscoe with a sharp,
half-amused scrutiny, then the two parted. Kilby kept his word. He was
liberal to Viking; and Phil's memory was drunk, not in silence, many
times that day. So that when, in the afternoon, he made up his mind
to keep his engagement with Mrs. Falchion, and left the valley for the
hills, he was not entirely sober. But he was apparently good-natured. As
he idled along he talked to himself, and finally broke out into singing:

"'Then swing the long boat down the drink,
For the lads as pipe to go;
But I sink when the 'Lovely Jane' does sink,
To the mermaids down below.'

"'The long boat bides on its strings,' says we,
'An' we bides where the long boat bides;
An' we'll bluff this equatorial sea,
Or swallow its hurricane tides.'

"But the 'Lovely Jane' she didn't go down,
An' she anchored at the Spicy Isles;
An' she sailed again to Wellington Town--