and for joy. He was so smiling, so ingenuous, that to refuse
him would have been rank discourtesy. I joined the group.

"I am twenty-eight times married this day," said M. Brault, "and my
friends and I make very happy."

The good husband was rejoicing on his wedding anniversary, and I
could but accept the champagne he ordered. "I am great satisfaction
to drink you," he said. "My friends drink my wife and me."

We toasted his admirable wife, we toasted the two republics; Lafayette,
Rochambeau, and Chateaubriand.

"Ah, le biftek!" said M. Leboucher.

We toasted Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and then we sang
for an hour. M. Brault was the leading composer of Tahiti. He was
the creator of Tahitian melodies, as Kappelmeister Berger was of
Hawaiian. For our delectation Brault sang ten of his songs between
toasts. I liked best "Le Bon Roi Pomare," the words of one of the
many stanzas being:

Il etait un excellent roi
Dont on ne dit rien dans l'histoire,
Qui ne connaissait qu'une Loi:
Celle de chanter, rire, et boire.
Fervent disciple de Bacchus
Il glorifiait sa puissance,
Puis, sacrifiait a Venus
Les loisirs de son existence.

REFRAIN:

Toujours joyeux, d'humeur gauloise,
Et parfois meme un peu grivoise
Le genereux Roi Pomare
Par son peuple est fort regrette.
S'il avait eu de l'eloquence
Il aurait gouverne la France!
Mais nos regrets sont superflus;
Puisqu'il est mort, n'en parlons plus!

"Ah, he was a chic type, that last King of Tahiti," said M. Brault, who
had written so many praiseful, merry verses about him. "He would have
a hula about him all the time. He loved the national dance. He would
sit or lie and drink all day and night. He loved to see young people
drink and enjoy themselves. Ah, those were gay times! Dancing the
nights away. Every one crowned with flowers, and rum and champagne like
the falls of Fautaua. The good king Pomare would keep up the upaupa,
the hula dance, for a a week at a time, until they were nearly all
dead from drink and fatigue. Mon dieu! La vie est triste maintenant."

Before we parted we sang the "Marseillaise" and the "Star-Spangled
Banner." Nobody knew the words, I least of any; so we la-la-la'd
through it, and when we parted for luncheon, we went down the crooked
stairway arm in arm, still giving forth snatches of "Le Bon Roi Pomare"
in honor of our host:

Mais, s'il aimait tant les