the height nor the
weight, being a flimsy creature alongside a man like me, and, besides, I
was blazing to that height of wrath that I could have bit into a chisel.
I gave him first the one and then the other, so that I could hear his
head rattle and crack, and he went down straight.

"Have you had enough?" cried I. But he only looked up white and blank,
and the blood spread upon his face like wine upon a napkin. "Have you
had enough?" I cried again. "Speak up, and don't lie malingering there,
or I'll take my feet to you."

He sat up at that, and held his head--by the look of him you could see
it was spinning--and the blood poured on his pyjamas.

"I've had enough for this time," says he, and he got up staggering, and
went off by the way that he had come.

The boat was close in; I saw the missionary had laid his book to one
side, and I smiled to myself. "He'll know I'm a man, anyway," thinks I.

This was the first time, in all my years in the Pacific, I had ever
exchanged two words with any missionary, let alone asked one for a
favour. I didn't like the lot--no trader does; they look down upon us,
and make no concealment; and, besides, they're partly Kanakaised, and
suck up with natives instead of with other white men like themselves. I
had on a rig of clean striped pyjamas--for, of course, I had dressed
decent to go before the chiefs; but when I saw the missionary step out
of this boat in the regular uniform, white duck clothes, pith helmet,
white shirt and tie, and yellow boots to his feet, I could have bunged
stones at him. As he came nearer, queering me pretty curious (because of
the fight, I suppose), I saw he looked mortal sick, for the truth was he
had a fever on, and had just had a chill in the boat.

"Mr. Tarleton, I believe?" says I, for I had got his name.

"And you, I suppose, are the new trader?" says he.

"I want to tell you first that I don't hold with missions," I went on,
"and that I think you and the likes of you do a sight of harm, filling
up the natives with old wives' tales and bumptiousness."

"You are perfectly entitled to your opinions," says he, looking a bit
ugly, "but I have no call to hear them."

"It so happens that you've got to hear them," I said. "I'm no
missionary, nor missionary lover; I'm no Kanaka, nor favourer of
Kanakas--I'm just a trader; I'm just a common, low-down, God-damned
white man and British subject, the sort you would like to wipe your
boots on. I hope that's p