credit of Germany
among the natives of both sides; the Tamaseses fearing they were
deserted, the Mataafas (with secret delight) hoping they were feared.
And it gave an impetus to that ridiculous business which might have
earned for the whole episode the name of the war of flags. British and
American flags had been planted the night before, and were seen that
morning flying over what they claimed about Laulii. British and American
passengers, on the way up and down, pointed out from the decks of the
war-ships, with generous vagueness, the boundaries of problematical
estates. Ten days later, the beach of Saluafata bay fluttered (as I have
told in the last chapter) with the flag of Germany. The Americans
riposted with a claim to Tamasese's camp, some small part of which (says
Knappe) did really belong to "an American nigger." The disease spread,
the flags were multiplied, the operations of war became an egg-dance
among miniature neutral territories; and though all men took a hand in
these proceedings, all men in turn were struck with their absurdity.
Mullan, Leary's successor, warned Knappe, in an emphatic despatch, not
to squander and discredit the solemnity of that emblem which was all he
had to be a defence to his own consulate. And Knappe himself, in his
despatch of March 21st, 1889, castigates the practice with much sense.
But this was after the tragi-comic culmination had been reached, and the
burnt rags of one of these too-frequently mendacious signals gone on a
progress to Washington, like Caesar's body, arousing indignation where it
came. To such results are nations conducted by the patent artifices of a
Becker.

The discussion of the morning, the silent menace and defiance of the
voyage to Laulii, might have set the best-natured by the ears. But
Knappe and de Coetlogon took their difference in excellent part. On the
morrow, November 16th, they sat down together with Blacklock in
conference. The English consul introduced his colleagues, who shook
hands. If Knappe were dead-weighted with the inheritance of Becker,
Blacklock was handicapped by reminiscences of Leary; it is the more to
the credit of this inexperienced man that he should have maintained in
the future so excellent an attitude of firmness and moderation, and that
when the crash came, Knappe and de Coetlogon, not Knappe and Blacklock,
were found to be the protagonists of the drama. The conference was
futile. The English and American consuls admitted but