OF THE SOUTH SEAS 99 



leaves over him?" I asked, influenced by his staring eyes. 



McHenry grinned foully. 



"Aye, man, you want too much," he replied. "I say 

 his face was white, and he was on his back in the marsh. 

 If he was alive, the leaves did n't finish him, and if he was 

 croaked, it did n't matter. I was obligin' a friend. 

 You 'd have done as much." He took up his glass and 

 muttered dramatically, "A few leaves for a friend." 



I shuddered, but Landers leaned over the table and 

 said to me, sotto voce: 



"McHenry's tellin' his usual bloody lie. Brown got 

 the vanilla all right, but what he did was to have the 

 bloomin' Chink consign it to him proper', and not give 

 him a receipt. Then he denied all knowledge of it, and 

 it bein' all the bleedin' Chinaman had, he died of a 

 broken heart — with maybe too many pipes of opium to 

 help him on a bit. McHenry and Pincher are terrible 

 liars. They call Pincher 'Lyin' Bill,' though I 'd take 

 his word in trade or about schooners any day." 



I had been introduced to a Doctor Funk by Count 

 Polonsky, who told me it was made of a portion of 

 absinthe, a dash of grenadine, — a syrup of the pome- 

 granate fruit, — the juice of two limes, and half a pint 

 of siphon water. Dr. Funk of Samoa, who had been 

 a physician to Robert Louis Stevenson, had left the 

 receipt for the concoction when he was a guest of the 

 club. One paid half a franc for it, and it would restore 

 self-respect and interest in one's surroundings when 

 even Tahiti rum failed. 



"Zat was ze drink I mix for Paul Gauguin, ze peintre 

 sauvage, here before he go to die in les isles Marquises" 



