dinner that took Teunis two hours to cook, and
let him use his own pet pipe with the last of Jule's tobacco in it, and
all that. And that evening in the cabin, Rosy told his story. Seems he
come from Bombay originally, where he was born an innocent and trained
to be a photographer. This was in the days when these hand cameras
wa'n't so common as they be now, and Rosy--his full name was Clarence
Rosebury, and he looked it--had a fine one. Also he had some plates and
photograph paper and a jug of 'developer' and bottles of stuff to make
more, wrapped up in an old overcoat and packed away in the carpetbag. He
had landed in the Fijis first-off and had drifted over to Hello Island,
taking pictures of places and natives and so on, intending to use 'em in
a course of lectures he was going to deliver when he got back home. He
boarded with the Kanaka lady at Hello till his money give out, and
then he married her to save board. He wouldn't talk about his married
life--just shivered instead.

"'But w'at about this good thing you was mentioning, Mr. Rosebury?' asks
Cap'n George, polite, but staring hard at the bag. Jule and the cook was
in the cabin likewise. The skipper would have liked to keep 'em out, but
they being two to one, he couldn't.

"'That's it,' answers Rosy, cheerful.

"'W'at's it?'

"'Why, the things in the grip; the photograph things. You see,' says
Rosy, getting excited, his innocent, dreamy eyes a-shining behind his
specs and the ridge of red hair around his bald spot waving like a hedge
of sunflowers; 'you see,' he says, 'my experience has convinced me that
there's a fortune right in these islands for a photographer who'll take
pictures of the natives. They're all dying to have their photographs
took. Why, when I was in Hello Island I could have took dozens, only
they didn't have the money to pay for 'em and I couldn't wait till they
got some. But you've got a schooner. You could sail around from one
island to another, me taking pictures and you getting copra and--and
pearls and things from the natives in trade for 'em. And we'd leave a
standing order for more plates to be delivered steady from the steamer
at Suva or somewheres, and--'

"''Old on!' Cap'n George had been getting redder and redder in the face
while Rosy was talking, and now he fairly biled over, like a teakettle.
''Old on!' he roars. 'Do I understand that THIS is the good thing
you was going to let me in on? Me to cruise you around from Dan to