OF THE SOUTH SEAS 467 



"You damned little scoundrel! How often have I 

 whipped you for that same trick! I would better have 

 left you in the slums in San Francisco." 



And then apologetically to me: 



"I ought to kill him for that. He 's a devil, that 

 monkey. He has bitten all the children around here, 

 has killed all my chickens, and raised more hell in this 

 village than the whole population put together. I 

 swear, I believe he just enjoys being mean. Come in 

 and have a snifter after that greeting! Did he hurt 

 you?" 



My would-be host was himself a very striking some- 

 body. He wore only a pareu, as I, of scarlet muslin, 

 with the William Morris design, but he had wound his 

 about so that it was a mere ornamental triangle upon 

 his tall, powerful, statuesque body. His chest and back 

 had a growth of red-gold hair, which, with his bronzed 

 skin, his red-gold beard, dark curls over a high fore- 

 head, handsome nose, and blue eyes, made him all of 

 the same color scheme. He was without doubt as near 

 to a Greek deity in life, a Dionysus, as one could imag- 

 ine. He had two flaming hibiscus blossoms over his 

 ears, and he looked in his late twenties. Accustomed 

 as I was to semi-nudity and to white men's return to 

 nature, I had never seen a man who so well fitted into 

 the landscape as the owner of the ape. He was the 

 faun to the curling locks and the pointed ears, with 

 not a trace of the satyr; all youth and grace and radi- 

 ance. 



He walked on before me to the fare, and, opening the 

 door, bade me welcome. The house differed from the 

 aboriginal in a wooden floor and three waUs of wire 



