f my house and across the river, waiting for the show,
whatever that was--fire to come down from heaven, I suppose, and consume
me, bones and baggage. But by evening, like real islanders, they had
wearied of the business, and got away, and had a dance instead in the
big house of the village, where I heard them singing and clapping hands
till, maybe, ten at night, and the next day it seemed they had
forgotten I existed. If fire had come down from heaven or the earth
opened and swallowed me, there would have been nobody to see the sport
or take the lesson, or whatever you like to call it. But I was to find
that they hadn't forgot either, and kept an eye lifting for phenomena
over my way.

I was hard at it both these days getting my trade in order and taking
stock of what Vigours had left. This was a job that made me pretty sick,
and kept me from thinking on much else. Ben had taken stock the trip
before--I knew I could trust Ben--but it was plain somebody had been
making free in the meantime. I found I was out by what might easily
cover six months' salary and profit, and I could have kicked myself all
round the village to have been such a blamed ass, sitting boozing with
that Case instead of attending to my own affairs and taking stock.

However, there's no use crying over spilt milk. It was done now, and
couldn't be undone. All I could do was to get what was left of it, and
my new stuff (my own choice) in order, to go round and get after the
rats and cockroaches, and to fix up that store regular Sydney style. A
fine show I made of it; and the third morning when I had lit my pipe and
stood in the doorway and looked in, and turned and looked far up the
mountain and saw the cocoa-nuts waving and posted up the tons of copra,
and over the village green and saw the island dandies and reckoned up
the yards of print they wanted for their kilts and dresses, I felt as if
I was in the right place to make a fortune, and go home again and start
a public-house. There was I, sitting in that verandah, in as handsome a
piece of scenery as you could find, a splendid sun, and a fine, fresh,
healthy trade that stirred up a man's blood like sea-bathing; and the
whole thing was clean gone from me, and I was dreaming England, which
is, after all, a nasty, cold, muddy hole, with not enough light to see
to read by; and dreaming the looks of my public, by a cant of a broad
high-road like an avenue, and with the sign on a green tree.

So much fo