OF THE SOUTH SEAS 249 



sume his rubber leg. I saw him being led and pulled 

 by my office, calling out, 'Tell the 'Merican consul a 

 good American is in the grip of the frogs.' " 



Within a month of the rubber-legged shiner's debut, 

 there were two other boot-blacks on the streets. A 

 madness possessed the people, Tahitians and French, 

 who all their lives had cleaned their own shoes, to sit on 

 the throne-like chairs, and women and girls waited their 

 turns. John Conroy and a negro from Mississippi were 

 the additions to the profession, and during the incar- 

 ceration of the premier artist, his sweetheart, a former 

 hula danseuse, remained faithful to his brushes. When 

 a shoeless man or woman regarded the new-fangled im- 

 portations interestedly, the proprietors offered to beau- 

 tify their naked feet, and, ridiculous as it may seem, at- 

 tempted it. 



Although I heard odd tales at the consulate, it was 

 at the pare de Bougainville that I met the gentleman of 

 the beach intimately. 



There I often sat and talked with whomever loafed. 

 Natives frequented the pare hardly ever, but beach- 

 combers, tourists, and sailors, or casual residents in from 

 the districts, awaited there the opening of the stores or 

 the post-office, or idled. The little park, or wooded 

 strip of green, named after the admiral, and containing 

 his monument, skirted the quay, and was between the 

 establishment of Emile Levy, the pearl-trader, and the 

 artificial pool of fresh water where the native women 

 and sailors off the ships washed their clothes. From 

 one's bench one had a view of all the harbor and of the 

 passers-by on the Broom Road. 



In the morning the pool was thronged with the laun- 



