slipping into the grave."

He gazed ruminantly away from the lagoon to the pool of Psyche,
where the Tahitian women squatted on their shapely haunches and
thumped their clothes.

"See," he said earnestly. "I am old and useless. Why should not
Steinach or the others make the grand experiment on me? If they
succeed, very good; if they fail, there is no loss. They say those
glands make a man over, no matter what his age. I offer myself
freely. I am not afraid of death. Me, I am a philosopher."

He spoke excitedly. His eyes were fixed on distance, and I followed
them.

Auro, the Golden One, as her name meant, had been washing her muslin
slips in the pool of Psyche, and now stood in the entrance to it. She
was for a fleeting second in her pareu only, her tunic raised above
her head to pull on, and her enravishing form disclosed from her
waist to her piquant face, over which tumbled her opulent locks.

It flashed on me that, wise and old as he was, the spectrum of the
philosopher's soul had all the colors of the ignorant and the young. I
looked from the nymphs of the pool to his darkening eyes, and I had a
revelation of the persistence of common humanity in the most learned
and the most philosophical. My castigation of myself for not buying
his steamship ticket ceased in a moment, though not the less did I
continue to enjoy his fount of learning and experience.

Chapter XIV

The market in Papeete--Coffee at Shin Bung Lung's with a prince--Fish
the chief item--Description of them--The vegetables and fruits--The
fish strike--Rumors of an uprising--Kelly and the I. W. W.--The
mysterious session at Fa'a--Halellujah! I'm a Bum!--The strike
is broken.

The market in Papeete, the only one in Tahiti, has an air all its
own. It is different in its amateur atmosphere and roseate color,
in its isothermal romance and sheer good humor, from all others
I have seen--Port of Spain, Peking, Kandy, or Jolo. It is more
fascinating in its sensuous, tropical setting, its strange foods,
and its laughing, lazy crowds of handsome people, than any other
public mart I know. There is no financial exchange in Tahiti. Stocks
and bonds take the shape of cocoanuts, vanilla-beans, fish, and other
comforts. The brokers are merry women. The market is spot, and buyers
must take delivery immediately, as usually not a single security is
left at the end of the day's trading.

One must be at the market before five o'clock to see it all. Sunday
is