OF THE SOUTH SEAS 243 



thinks Tahiti is his oyster, to be opened with false pre- 

 tenses, and a pearl found. This type has two varieties, 

 impecunious, but well-educated, youths, younger sons, 

 maybe; and valets and varlets. These scoundrels 

 afflict me dreadfully, because they all ultimately claim 

 the protection of the British flag or are reported by the 

 police for skullduggery. There is a fellow now on my 

 hands who is threatenin' suicide. I wish to Gog and 

 Magog that he would take to the reef or find a stick of 

 dynamite. Monsieur Lontane, that busy French gen- 

 darme, found him tryin' to borrow a revolver or a sti- 

 letto, and thought he was going to kill a Frenchman. 

 He put him in the calaboose and brought his effects to 

 me. They consisted of a book of poems and a letter, 

 but not a ha'penny." 



"What does the bounder look like?" asked Stevens. 



"He looks like a beadle in a dissentin' church, with a 

 long, skinny neck, a pasty face, and a cockney accent. 

 I went to see him, and he talked like an underdone 

 curate who had had a bad night. When he got off the 

 ship, where he owed everybody, includin' the smokin'- 

 room, he came to see me with some crazy papers for me 

 to sign. He said then he had not a shillin', and I ad- 

 vised him to go to work. He said there was n't any 

 work ; so knowin' Llewellyn was badly in need of people, 

 I sent him to his vanilla plantation out Mataiea way. 

 You know here they have n't the bees or whatever it is 

 that transfers the pollen from the stigma to the anther 

 or what-d 'ye-call-it, and so they do it by hand with a 

 piece of bamboo or a stem of grass. The girls do it 

 mostly, but I thought this jackpuddin' could make an 

 honest pound or two. He came tearin' back to me sayin' 



