148 MYSTIC ISLES 



him up the road, I demanded my account. He is thirty 

 years younger than me, and I would have kept my eyes, 

 but he leaped at me like a wild dog, and knocked me 

 down and pounded me in the dirt." 



I sympathized with McTavish, though McHenry 

 snickered. The Scot went into an inner room and 

 brought back a dirty book, a tattered register of his 

 guests. He turned a number of pages — there were 

 only a few guests to a twelvemonth — and, finding his 

 assailant's name, wrote in capital letters against it, 

 "THIEF." 



"There," he said with a magnificent gesture. "Let 

 the whole world read and know the truth!" 



He set out a bottle of rum and several glasses, and 

 we toasted him while I looked over the register. Hardly 

 any one had neglected to write beside his name tributes 

 to the charm of the place and the kind heart of Mc- 

 Tavish. 



Charmian and Jack London's signatures were there, 

 with a hearty word for the host, and "This is the most 

 beautiful spot in the universe," for Moorea and Urufara. 



There were scores of poems, one in Latin and many 

 in French. Americans seem to have been contented to 

 quote Kipling, the "Lotus Eaters," or Omar, but Eng- 

 lishmen had written their own. English university men 

 are generous poetasters. I have read their verses in 

 inns and outhouses of many countries. Usually they 

 season with a sprig from Horace or Vergil. 



"I 'm goin' to the west'ard," said McTavish. "There 

 are too many low whites comin' here. When Moorea 

 had only sail from Tahiti, the blackguards did not come. 



