272 MYSTIC ISLES 



drank the wine of Champagne warm, and out of beer 

 glasses; of Captain Minne's statement that he would 

 kill a scion of Tahitian royalty (not Hinoe) if he did 

 not marry his daughter before the captain returned from 

 the Paumotus; and of Count Polonsky's calling down 

 the black procureur, the attorney-general, right in the 

 same tap-room, and telling him he was a "nigger," al- 

 though they had been friends before. 



Tahitian and French and English, but very little of 

 the latter, echoes through the coffee-room. Even I 

 make a feeble struggle to speak the native tongue, and 

 arouse storms of giggles. 



The market-place faces the Mairie, the city hall, and 

 its center is a fountain beloved of youth. There sit or 

 loll the maidens of Papeete at night, and titter as pass 

 the sighing lads. There wait the automobiles to carry 

 the pleasure bent to Kelly's grove at Fa'a, where the 

 maxixe and the tango rage, the hula-dancers quiver and 

 quaver, and wassail has no bounds. 



When the whites are at dinner, the natives meet in 

 the market-place, which is the agora, as the place du 

 gouvemment is the forum of the dance and music of 

 these ocean Greeks. 



But at this hour it is wreathed with women, scores 

 squat upon their mats on the pave, their goods spread 

 before the eyes of the purchasers. 



The sellers of the materials for hats are many. The 

 bamboo fiber, yellowish white, is the choicest, but there 

 are other colors and stuffs. The women venders smoke 

 cigarettes and are always laughing. Old crones, with- 

 ered and feeble, shake their thin sides at their own and 

 others' jokes. 



