d cyclists to retreat.

Lovaina appeared, puffing furiously. Vava was roused to a high
pitch. He told me by signs how he had seen the fire and given the alarm
to the mairie, or city hall, the bell of which tolled for an hour.

There was no wind, and the flames rose straight up, scorching
the cocoanut-leaves, but unharming other houses within twenty-five
feet. The crowd lingered until the last timber had fallen. After seeing
that there was small danger to the adjoining buildings, and learning
that the loss fell upon Chinese only, that no one had been hurt, and
that a can of kerosene had exploded, interest in the conflagration
dropped, and friends and acquaintances who had met chatted amiably
on other subjects. The proximity of the fire and the marshy condition
of the ground made it proper for the ladies with well-turned legs to
raise their gowns high, displaying garterless stockings held up by the
"native twist" above the calf. Accordions and mouth-organs enlivened
the talk, and not until only charred boards remained did we leave.

Besides the occasional concerts of the band, boxing and moving-pictures
made up the public night life of Papeete. Attached to the theaters
were bars, as at the Palais, and these were the foci of those who
hunted distraction, and the trysting-places of the amorous. One found
in them or flitting about them all the Tahitian or part Tahitian
girls in Papeete who were not kept from them by higher ambition or
by a strict family rule. From Moorea, Raiatea, Bora-Bora, and other
islands, and from the rural districts of Tahiti, drifted the fairest
who pursued pleasure, and to these cafes went the male tourists,
the gayer traders, the sailors, and the Tahitian men of city ways,
the chauffeurs, clerks, and officials.

Boxing and cinemas were novelties in Tahiti, and though the bars
were only adjuncts of the shows, they had become the scenes of a
hectic life quite different from former days. The groves, the beach,
and the homes were less frequented for merrymaking, the white having
brought his own comparatively new customs of men and women drinking
together in public houses. And there had crept in on a small scale an
exploitation of beauty by those who profited by the receipts at the
prize-fights, the cinemas, and the bars. The French or part castes who
owned these attractions were copying the cruder methods of the Chinese.

Llewellyn, David, and McHenry were habitues of these resorts, and I
not an in