OF THE SOUTH SEAS 103 



negress, and his chauffeur an American expert. These 

 had nothing in common and could not ally themselves 

 to cheat him, he said. 



As I came back to the front veranda McHenry and 

 Llewellyn were talking excitedly. 



"I 've had my old lady nineteen years," said Mc- 

 Henry, boastfully, "and she wouldn't speak to me if 

 she met me on the streets of Papeete. She would n't 

 dare to in public until I gave her the high sign. You 're 

 a bloody fool makin' equals of the natives, and throwin' 

 away money on those cinema girls the way you do." 



This incensed Llewellyn, who was of chiefly Tahitian 

 blood, and who claimed kings of Wales as his ancestors. 

 Although -extremely aristocratic in his attitude toward 

 strangers, his native strain made him resent McHenry's 

 rascally arrogance as a reflection upon his mother's race. 



"Shut up, Mac!" he half shouted. "You talk too 

 much. If it had n't been for that same old lady of yours, 

 you 'd have died of delirium-tremens or fallen into the 

 sea long ago." 



"Aye," said the trader, meditatively, "that vahine 

 has saved my life, but I'm not goin' to sacrifice my dig- 

 nity as a white man. If ye let go everything, the damn' 

 natives '11 walk over ye, and ye '11 make nothin' out o' 

 them." 



Lovaina had occasionally called me Dixey, and had 

 explained that I was the "perfec' im'ge" of a man of 

 that name, and that he owned a little cutter which traded 

 to Raiaroa, on which atoll he lived. I walked like him, 

 was of the same size, and had the "same kin' funny 

 face." 



She piqued my curiosity, and so when I found him at 



