, his scale of prices was ridiculously
low, and if you were a lady you could buy out the ship at half price. As
for young Skiddy, the American consul, the bars in his case were
lowered even more, and he was just asked to help himself; which young
Skiddy did, though sparingly. Captain Satterlee took an immense fancy to
this youthful representative of their common country, and treated him
with an engaging mixture of respect and paternalism; and Skiddy, not to
be behindhand, and dazzled, besides, by his elder's marked regard and
friendship, threw wide the consular door, and constantly pressed on
Satterlee the hospitality of a cot on the back veranda.

The captain professed to find it remarkable--which, indeed, it was--that
a boy of twenty-six should have been intrusted with the welfare of so
considerable a section of Samoa's white population. The roll of the
consulate bore the names of thirty-eight Americans, not to speak of a
thirty-ninth who was soon expected, over whom the young consul possessed
extraordinary powers withheld from far higher posts in far more
important countries. Young Skiddy, on a modest salary of two hundred
dollars a month and a house rent-free, was supposed, if need be, to
marry you, divorce you, try you for crimes and misdemeanors, and in
extreme cases might even dangle you from the flagstaff in his front
yard.

He had been very seldom called on, however, to use these extensive
powers. In three years he had married as many couples, helped to baptize
a half-caste baby, held an inquest on a dead sailor, bullied a Samoan
army off his front grass, and had settled a disputed inheritance
involving five acres of cocoanuts. This, of course, left him with some
spare time on his hands, which, on the whole, he managed to get through
with very tolerable enjoyment. But until the date of Captain Satterlee's
arrival he had never had a friend, or at least so it seemed to him now
in the retrospect. His official colleagues were out of the question--the
standoffish Englishman, the sullen German, the grotesque Swede who held
the highest judicial office. No, there was not the little finger of a
friend in the whole galaxy. And elsewhere? Not a soul to whom one could
give intimacy without the danger, almost the certainty, of its being
abused. No wonder, then, that he turned to Satterlee, and grasped the
hand of fellowship so warmly extended to him.

The little consul had never known such a man; he had never heard such