with his help so, I tucks Don
Orena under my arm, lays him acrosst my knee, and gives him a
taste o' th' rope's end. He hollers murder, but I bats him around
until he can't let out another peep, after which I grabs a
machete that's handy an' chases the entire male population into
the jungle. When I gets back, Pinky is hanging to the bull rings,
about dead. I cuts her down, swings her on th' mule, an' makes
for the coast. We was aboard th' _Dashin' Wave_ next mornin'.

"Bull was settin' up on top o' th' house eatin' an orange when me
an' Pinky comes over th' rail.

"'Bull McGinty' says I, 'you're a sea captain. Come down off that
house an' marry me to Pinky Poui-Slam-Bang.'

"'With pleasure,' says Bull, an' he done it, announcin' us man
an' wife by all th' rules an' regulations o' th' Department o'
Commerce an' Labour, th' _Dashin' Wave_ being registered under
th' American flag.

"Six weeks later I sets Pinky down on the beach at Nonuti, an' we
both go up to her old man's shack for the parental blessin'. I
expected Poui-Slam-Bang would slaughter th' roasted hog upon th'
prodigal's return, but come t' find out, the old boy's been took
in a scrap with one o' the hill tribes, an' speculation's rife as
to his final disposition. Pinky allows that pa's been et up, an'
she havin' no brothers is by all the rules o' the game queen o'
Aranuka. Of course, me bein' her husband, I'm king. You can't get
around my rights to the job nohow. For all that Pinky stands in
with me, however, a big wild-eyed beggar makes up his mind that
he'll make a better king than Adelbert P. Gibney, an' he comes at
me with a four-foot war club, with two spikes drove crosswise
through the business end o' it. As he swings, I soaks him between
the eyes with a ripe breadfruit, with the result that his aim's
spoiled an' he misses. So I took his club away an' hugged him
until I broke three ribs, an' he was always good after that. I
wanted t' be king, but I didn't believe in sheddin' no blood for
the mere sake of office.

"Well, McGuffey, I was king of Aranuka for nearly six months. I
was a popular king, too, an' there was never no belly-achin' at
my decisions. I had a double-barrelled muzzle-loadin' shotgun, a
present from Bull McGinty. Bull was all broke up at me desertin'
the _Dashin' Wave_, but I promised to save all the Aranuka trade
for him an' for nobody else, an' he stood off for Suva to get
himself another mate.

"At first it was great busines