great honor; an honor which was not extended to the secretary,
although he was given a necklace of animals' claws instead, with which
he was better satisfied.

After this reception, the embassy marched back to the consul's office,
surrounded by an immense number of the natives, some of whom ran ahead
and looked back at them, and crowded so close that the two Bradleys had
to poke at those nearest with their guns. The crowd remained outside
the office even after the procession of four had disappeared, and
cheered. This suggested to Gordon that this would be a good time to
make a speech, which he accordingly did, Stedman translating it,
sentence by sentence. At the conclusion of this effort, Albert
distributed a number of brass rings among the married men present,
which they placed on whichever finger fitted best, and departed
delighted.

Albert had wished to give the rings to the married women, but Stedman
pointed out to him that it would be much cheaper to give them to the
married men; for while one woman could only have one husband, one man
could have at least six wives.

"And now, Stedman," said Albert, after the mob had gone, "tell me what
you are doing on this island."

"It's a very simple story," Stedman said. "I am the representative, or
agent, or operator, for the Yokohama Cable Company. The Yokohama Cable
Company is a company organized in San Francisco, for the purpose of
laying a cable to Yokohama. It is a stock company; and though it
started out very well, the stock has fallen very low. Between
ourselves, it is not worth over three or four cents. When the officers
of the company found out that no one would buy their stock, and that no
one believed in them or their scheme, they laid a cable to Octavia, and
extended it on to this island. Then they said they had run out of
ready money, and would wait until they got more before laying their
cable any farther. I do not think they ever will lay it any farther,
but that is none of my business. My business is to answer cable
messages from San Francisco, so that the people who visit the home
office can see that at least a part of the cable is working. That
sometimes impresses them, and they buy stock. There is another chap
over in Octavia, who relays all my messages and all my replies to those
messages that come to me through him from San Francisco. They never
send a message unless they have brought someone to the office whom they
want to impress, an