y the
hand, and then paused. His eyes were intently directed along the road
by which I had come. I looked back, and there stood the stalwart Tongan
where I had left him, gazing at the sixpence I had placed in his hand.
There was a kind of stupefaction in his attitude. Presently the consul
said somewhat tartly: "Ah, you've been to the Palace--the Crown Prince
has brought you over!"

It was not without a thrill of nervousness that I saw my royal guide
flip the sixpence into his mouth--he had no pocket--and walk back
towards the royal abode.

I told the consul just how it was. In turn he told his daughter, the
daughter told the native servants, and in three minutes the place was
echoing with languid but appreciative laughter. Natives came to the door
to look at me, and after wide-eyed smiling at me for a minute gave place
to others. Though I too smiled, my thoughts were gloomy; for now it
seemed impossible to go to the Palace and present myself to King George
and the Heir-Apparent. But the consul, and, still more, the consul's
daughter, insisted; pooh-poohing my hesitation. At this distance from
the scene and after years of meditation I am convinced that their
efforts to induce me to go were merely an unnatural craving for
sensation.

I went--we three went. Even a bare-legged King has in his own house
an advantage over the European stranger. I was heated, partly from
self-repression, partly from Scotch tweed. King George was quite,
quite cool, and unencumbered, save for a trifling calico jacket, a pink
lava-lava, and the august fly-flapper. But what heated me most, I think,
was the presence of the Crown Prince, who, on my presentation, looked
at me as though he had never seen me before. He was courteous, however,
directing a tappa cloth to be spread for me. The things I intended to
say to King George for the good of himself and his kingdom, which I had
thought out on the steamer Lubeck and rehearsed to my guide a few hours
before, would not be tempted forth. There was silence; for the consul
did not seem "to be on in the scene," and presently the King of Holy
Tonga nodded and fell asleep. Then the Crown Prince came forward, and
beckoned me to go with him. He led me to a room which was composed of
mats and bamboo pillars chiefly. At first I thought there were about ten
pillars to support the roof, but my impression before I left was that
there were about ten thousand. For which multiplication there were good
reasons.