round and says: 'Out you go,
you Chinkie--out you go and out you stay! We're going to reap this
harvest all alone; we're going to Chicago you clean off the table!' And
Washington, the Home of Freedom and Tammany Tigers, shoves a prohibitive
Bill through the Legislature, as Parkes did in Sydney; only Parkes
talked a lot of Sunday-school business about the solidarity of the
British race, and Australia for the Australians, and all that patter;
and the Oregonian showed his dirty palm of selfishness straight out, and
didn't blush either. 'Give 'em Botany Bay! Give'em the stock-whip and
the rifle!' That's a nice gospel for the Anglo-Saxon dispensation."

The suddenness of the attack overwhelmed the Member, but he was choking
with wrath. Had he not stone-walled in the New South Wales Parliament
for nine hours, and been placed on a Royal Commission for that service?
"My word!" But the box of cigars was here amiably passed, and what
seemed like a series of international complications was stayed. It was
perhaps fortunate, however, that at this moment a new interest sprang
up. We were rounding a lofty headland crowned with groves of cocoa-palms
and bananas and with trailing skirts of flowers and vines, when we saw
ahead of us a pretty little bay, and on the shore a human being plainly
not a Polynesian. Up the hillside that rose suddenly from the beach was
a thatched dwelling, not built open all round like most native houses,
and apparently having but one doorway. In front of the house, and near
it, was a tall staff, and on the staff the British Flag.

In a moment we, too, had the British Flag flying at our mast-head.

Long ago I ceased to wonder at coincidences, still I confess I was
scarcely prepared for the Correspondent's exclamation, as, taking the
marine glass from his eyes, he said: "Well, I'm decalogued if it ain't a
Chinaman!"

It certainly was so. Here on the Island of Pentecost, in the New
Hebrides, was a Celestial washing clothes on the beach as much at home
as though he were in Tacoma or Cooktown. The Member's "My oath!"
Skye Terryer's "Ah!" and the Captain's chuckle were as weighty with
importance as though the whole question of Chinese immigration were now
to be settled. As we hove-to and dropped anchor, a boat was pushed out
into the surf by a man who had hurriedly come down the beach from the
house. In a moment or two he was alongside. An English face and an
English voice greeted us, and in the doorway of the ho