OF THE SOUTH SEAS 69 



thinks all men not English, French, or Americans, are 

 Germans; so she identified the Dane as the German 

 who went to Fanny's for his meals. 



Lovaina said to me: 



"I hear you look one house that maybe you rent. 

 You don't get wise if you rent from that French 

 woman. I don't say nothing about her, but you know 

 her tongue? So sharp jus' like knife. All time she 

 have trouble. Can't rent her house so sharp. Some 

 artist he rent; she take box, peep over see what he do 

 jus' because he have some girl. Nobody talk her down. 

 No, I take back. Jus' one French woman who know 

 to swear turribil. This swear woman she call her tur- 

 ribil name and say, 'Everybody don't know you was con- 

 vict in Noumea for killing one man for money.' That 

 turribil talli, and she jus' fell down. Good for her, I 

 think." 



Lovaina seldom rode in her automobile, which she 

 kept primarily for renting to guests for country tours. 

 She had had for years a carriage, a surrey, drawn by 

 one horse, which had grown old and rickety with the 

 vehicle. The driver was a mute, Vava, his name mean- 

 ing dumb in Tahitian, and the English and Americans 

 called him the Dummy. He was attached to Lovaina 

 as a child to his mother — a wayward, jealous, cloudy- 

 minded child, who almost daily broke into fits of anger 

 over incidents misunderstood by his groping mentality, 

 and because of his incommunicable feelings. The hotel 

 was in a fearsome uproar when Vava fell into a tantrum, 

 women patrons afraid of his possible actions and men 

 threatening to club him into a mild frame of mind. I 

 doubt if any one there could have subdued him physi- 



