stoop, and then came back
wanting to know where was the cart and what was he to do? This was first
how we got acquainted, Doc and me; and a remarkably finely educated man
he was, too, and I don't doubt for a minute all that he represented
himself. I fixed up a small shed for him with some mats, a tin basin and
a lamp; and after a day or two, seeing how willing he worked and how
faithful in spite of every one staring at a white man between the
shafts, I let him take his meals regular with me and Rosie like one of
the family.

For all he was down and out, and trundled my things about the beach like
a donkey, in knowledge and everything he was miles above me and I knew
it--and he made it plain he knew it, too. He was not at all a genial
man, but had a rasping, bitter way about him, and a tongue as sharp as a
razor, and a line of talk as to how the world was made up of flats and
sharpers, all of them hypocrites, and how there wasn't but one sin--and
that was to be found out. He talked like the devil might be expected to
talk, there being no goodness or honor anywhere; and in some ways he
wasn't unlike him in looks as generally represented, being tall and
thin, with keen gray eyes that seemed to bore right through you, and a
wicked, sneering mouth like a slit across his face.

Very soon he was doctoring natives on the sly for quarters and half
dollars and bonito hooks and tappa, and quite a row of bottles and
drug-store stuff began to accumulate along the ledges of the shed walls.
I didn't think it was my business to interfere as long as he let white
people alone, besides feeling sorry for him, and appreciating the way he
paid no attention to Rosie's outbreaks, sitting there like he was air,
and not passing a single remark--being, for all his faults, a gentleman
through and through. At last he chucked the handcart altogether, though
he went on messing with me and living in my shed, his Kanaka practice
growing very extensive. It grew and grew till finally the regular doctor
called a halt, and he was warned in an official letter, and told he
would get three months' imprisonment if he persisted. At this I thought
he would go back to the shafts again, though I didn't care to propose it
lest it should hurt his feelings. But instead he bought an accordion and
did nothing but play and play on it for days, beginning awful bad like
he didn't know one end of it from another, but improving wonderful till
it was dandy to hear him.

I