the whaler--totaled up all the little sadnesses of her little
life, meting out tears to every one. And then, feeling greatly
refreshed, she went out on the front porch, and wondered what she should
do next.

Down the shore, about a mile away, there were others who found time less
heavy on their hands. At the Land We Live In, a one-roomed saloon which
catered for a permanent white population of thirteen, and a transient
one that varied from a cutter to a full-rigged ship--at the Land We Live
In Christmas was being celebrated in a rousing fashion. To begin with,
there were the mutineers of the _Lord Dundonald_, twenty-two strong,
with plenty of money still to spend. Their revolt against authority had
not been without some redeeming features, and an unbiased critic would
have found it hard to blame them. After twenty-seven days and nights at
the pumps of a four-masted sieve, the Lords had struck in a body, and
forced the captain to abandon the ship and set out in three boats for
Apiang. Here they double-dyed their crime by compelling the wrathful
master to pay them their wages to date, from six hundred and thirty-nine
pounds he had taken with him from a vessel he had fondly hoped to pump
to China. Captain Latimer, with the three mates, the carpenter, and one
of the hands, had sailed away south in the longboat, vowing yardarms and
a man-of-war, and when last seen was sinking over the horizon in the
direction of the Fiji Islands.

Well, here they all were in the Land We Live In, together with Tom
Holderson, Peter Extrum, Eddy Newnes, and Long Joe Kelly, all of Apiang;
Papa Benson, of Tarawa; Jones and Peabody, of Big Muggin; and crazy old
Jimmy Mathison, of nowhere in particular--unless it were the nearest gin
bottle; and it was a rip-roaring Christmas, and no mistake, with
bottled beer flowing like water, and songs and choruses and clog dances
and hornpipes; and Papa Benson (in earrings and pink pajamas) a-blowing
enough wind through his concertina to have sailed a ship. And there were
girls, too, seven or eight of them, in bright trade-cotton Mother
Hubbards--a bevy of black-eyed little heathen savages, who bore a hand
with the trays, and added their saucy laughter to the general gayety,
helping out Larry the barkeep as he drew unending corks or stopped to
wipe the sweat off his forehead, saying, "Genelmen, the drinks is on
Billy," or Tommy, or Long Joe, or whoever it was that was treating.

Suddenly, at the door, which