s,
candy--"

"Substantial, I must say."

"Do hush. Rice, and curry, yam, taro, bonita, of course, a big cake
Toyama is making, young pig--"

"Oh, I say," he protested.

"It is all right, Boyd. We'll be in Attu-Attu in three days. Besides,
it's my pig. That old chief what-ever-his-name distinctly presented it
to me. You saw him yourself. And then two tins of bullamacow. That's
their dinner. And now about the presents. Shall we wait until tomorrow,
or give them this evening?"

"Christmas Eve, by all means," was the man's judgment. "We'll call all
hands at eight bells; I'll give them a tot of rum all around, and then
you give the presents. Come on up on deck. It's stifling down here. I
hope Lorenzo has better luck with the dynamo; without the fans there
won't be much sleeping to-night if we're driven below."

They passed through the small main-cabin, climbed a steep companion
ladder, and emerged on deck. The sun was setting, and the promise was
for a clear tropic night. The Samoset, with fore- and main-sail winged
out on either side, was slipping a lazy four-knots through the smooth
sea. Through the engine-room skylight came a sound of hammering. They
strolled aft to where Captain Dettmar, one foot on the rail, was
oiling the gear of the patent log. At the wheel stood a tall South Sea
Islander, clad in white undershirt and scarlet hip-cloth.

Boyd Duncan was an original. At least that was the belief of his
friends. Of comfortable fortune, with no need to do anything but take
his comfort, he elected to travel about the world in outlandish and
most uncomfortable ways. Incidentally, he had ideas about coral-reefs,
disagreed profoundly with Darwin on that subject, had voiced his opinion
in several monographs and one book, and was now back at his hobby,
cruising the South Seas in a tiny, thirty-ton yacht and studying
reef-formations.

His wife, Minnie Duncan, was also declared an original, inasmuch as she
joyfully shared his vagabond wanderings. Among other things, in the six
exciting years of their marriage she had climbed Chimborazo with him,
made a three-thousand-mile winter journey with dogs and sleds in Alaska,
ridden a horse from Canada to Mexico, cruised the Mediterranean in a
ten-ton yawl, and canoed from Germany to the Black Sea across the
heart of Europe. They were a royal pair of wanderlusters, he, big and
broad-shouldered, she a small, brunette, and happy woman, whose one
hundred and fifteen pounds were a