tly, up in the dark behind the Residence; still tentatively, with,
now and then through the flawless hush of the night, the guiding note of
a woman's voice. (A woman profoundly mystified.)

A rehearsal? For what? For that almost mythical Broadway half around the
bulge of the world? Had the fool, then, not got beyond _that_? Yet?

Here he was, lord of the daughter of a queen, proprietor of a "gold
mine." For Signet was not to be hoodwinked about the commercial value of
Taai. All afternoon and evening, as through the two days following,
while my promised cargo was getting ferried out under the shining
authority of the pump gun, he scarcely let a minute go by without some
word or figure to impress upon me the extent of his "possessions." To
what end?

Well, it all came out in a burst on the third evening, my last there. He
even followed me to the beach; actually, regardless of the Dutchman's
nephew's boots and trouser legs, he pursued me out into the shadows.

"A gold mine! Don't be a damned boob, Dole. You can see for yourself, a
big proposition for a guy like you, with a ship and everything--"

Upon me he would heap all those priceless "possessions." Me! And in
exchange he would ask only cabin passage for two from Taai beach to the
Golden Gate. Only deck passage! Only anything!

"Set us down there, me and her, that's all. I'll give you a bill of
sale. Why, from where you look at it, it's a _find_! It's a lead-pipe
cinch! It's taking candy away from a baby, man!"

"Why don't you keep it, then?"

The soul of his city showed through. I saw him again as I had seen him
swimming in his cotton pants, with that low-comedy whisker and that
consuming little greedy nickel hope of paradise. Even the gestures.

"No, but can't you see, Dole? I got a bigger thing up my sleeve.
God'l'mighty, d'you think I'm a _farmer_? You could go big here; _I_
don't go at all. I ain't that kind. But put me down in New York with
that woman there and that there dance--and that tune--Say! You don't
understand. You can't imagine. Money? Say! And not only money. Say! I
could take that up to Glauber's Academy, and I could say to Glauber,
'Glauber,' I could say--"

I had to leave him standing there, up to his knees in the inky water,
heaping me frankly with curses. I shall not repeat the curses. At the
end of them he bawled after me:

"But I'll get there! You watch me all the same, all the same, you
damn--"

The reason I didn't up-anchor and ge