his claimed illicit loves. Loud-mouthed, bullet-headed, beady-eyed,
a chunk of rank flesh shaped by a hundred sordid deeds, he must get
the center of attention by any hazard.

"Brown's purty stuck up now," he said acridly. "I remember the time
when he didn't have a pot to cook in. He had thirty Chile dollars a
month wages. We come on the beach the same day in the same ship. His
shoes were busted out, and he was crazy to get money for a new girl
he had. There was a Chink had eighteen tins of vanilla-beans worth
about two hundred American dollars each. He got the Chink to believe
he could handle the vanilla for him, and got hold of it, and then out
by the vegetable garden Brown hit the poor devil of a Chink over the
nut with a club."

McHenry got up from the table, and with Llewellyn's walking-stick
showed exactly how the blow was struck. He brought down the cane
so viciously against the edge of the table that he spilled our rum
punches.

"Mac," exclaimed Llewellyn, testily, as he shot him a hot glance
from the melancholy eyes under his black thatch of brows, "behave
yourself! You know you're lying."

McHenry laughed sourly, and went on:

"I was chums with Brown then, and when I caught up to him,--I was
walkin' behind them,--he asked me to see if the Chink was dead. I
went back to where he had tumbled him. He was layin' on his back in
a kind o' ditch, and he was white instead o' yeller. He was white
as Lyin' Bill's schooner. How would you 'a' done? Well, to protect
that dirty pup Brown, I covered him over with leaves from head to
foot--big bread-fruit and cocoanut-leaves. He never showed up again,
and Brown had the vanilla. That's how he got his start, and, so help
me God! I never got a franc from the business."

There was venom in McHenry's tone, and he looked at me, the newcomer,
to see what impression he had made. The others said not a word of
comment, and it may have been an often-told tale by him. He had
emptied his glass of the potent Martinique rum four or five times.

"Was the Chinaman sure dead when you put the leaves over him?" I asked,
influenced by his staring eyes.

McHenry grinned foully.

"Aye, man, you want too much," he replied. "I say his face was white,
and he was on his back in the marsh. If he was alive, the leaves didn't
finish him, and if he was croaked, it didn't matter. I was obligin'
a friend. You'd have done as much." He took up his glass and muttered
dramatically, "A few leaves for