d in the clubs, or when
ladies met at market, the weakness of the authorities in allowing
the extortion. But nothing was done. The extortion continued, and
the profanity increased. At the Cercle Bouganville Captain Goeltz
and the other retired salts banged the tables and said to me:

"Sacre redingote! is it that the indigenes pay the governor or give
him fish free? Are we French citizens to die of hunger that savages
may ride in les Fords?"

They shouted for Doctor Funks, and drank damnation to the regime
that let patriots surfer to profit les canaques. But, in reality,
the governor months ago had secretly begun a plan to help them.

One day the governor, his good lady being gone to visit at Raiatea,
had given his cook three francs to buy fish for the dejeuner at the
palace. When they came on the table, a bare bite for each of the
company, the governor had called in the chef.

"Mais, I gave you three francs for the fish, n'est-ce pas?"

"Mais, vous don' lai moi t'ree franc, oui, oui," answered the
Chinese. "Moi don'lai canaque po po'sson."

The governor had led in the chorus of sacres and diables. All at
the table were of the redingote family, all feeding from the national
trough at Paris, and they had the courage and power to end the damnable
imposition on the slender purses of Papeete citizens. Sapristi! this
robbery must cease. He must go slow, however. Being an honest and
unselfish man, he investigated and initiated legislation so carefully
and tardily that the remedy for the evil was applied only four days
ago. He had returned to France, so one could not say that he consulted
his own purse; but the present governor, an amiable man and a good
bridge-player, also liked fish, and they pay no bonanza salaries,
the French. The fishermen had known, of course, of the approaching
end of their piracy, but, like Tahitians, waited until necessity
for action. The official paper in which all laws are published had
the ordinance set out in full. Translated, briefly, from the French,
it ran like this:

That the Governor of the establishments of France in Oceania,
a chevalier of the Legion of Honor [this information is inserted
in every degree, announcement and statement the governor makes, and
stares at one from a hundred trees], in view of the "article du decret
du 21 decembre, 1885," etc. [and in view of a dozen other articles
of various dates since], considering that fish is the basis of the
alimentation of the Tahiti