at one of France. He drank champagne from a bottle, a clear four
inches between its neck and his, and not a drop spilled.

Lovaina sat on her bench in the porch and marked down the debits:

Fat face............3 Roederer..........
New Doctor..........5 champag...........
Hair on nose........2 champ.............
Willi...............4 pol..............

The electric lights went out. There was a dreadful flutter among the
girls. Some one went to the piano and began to play, "Should Auld
Acquaintance be Forgot," and the Americans and English sang, the
French humming the air. The wine flattened in the glasses and open
bottles, but no one cared. They gathered in the garden, where the
perfume of the tiare scented the night, and the stars were a million
lamps sublime in the sky. Song followed song, English and French,
and when the lazy current pulsated again, the ball was over.

We walked to the beach, Nance and I.

"It's hell how this place gets hold of you," said Nance, who had shot
pythons in Paraguay and had a yacht in Los Angeles harbor. "I dunno,
it must be the cocoanuts or the breadfruit."

Walking back alone through a by-path, I saw the old folks sitting on
their verandas and the younger at dalliance in the many groves. Voices
of girls called me:

"Haere me ne!" "Come to us!" "Hoere mai u nei ite po ia u nei!"

The Himene tatou Arearea of our Moorea expedition came from many
windows, the accordions sweet and low, and the subdued chant in
sympathy with the mellow hour. "The soft lasceevious stars leered
from these velvet skies."

Lovaina had gone to bed, but, with the lights on again, patrons of
the prize-fight had dropped in. The Christchurch Kid had beaten Teaea,
a native, the match being a preliminary clearing of the ground before
the signal encounter with the bridegroom.

The glass doors of the salle-a-manger were broken in a playful scuffle
between the whiskered doctor of the hospital, and Afa, the majordomo
of the Tiare. The medical man ordered five bottles of champagne,
and, putting them in his immense pockets, returned to his table and
opened them all at once. He had them spouting about him while their
fizz lasted, and then drank most of their contents. He then threw all
the crockery of his table to the roadway, and Afa wrestled him into
a better state, during which process the doors were smashed. When
the bombilation became too fearful, Lovaina called out from her bed:

"Make sm