or two of poker.

"I'll give you your revenge when I come back from the Carolines,
Lannigan," said the redoubtable captain as he scooped in every dollar of
the trader's takings for the past six months. And Lannigan, grasping
his hand warmly and declaring it was a pleasure to be "claned out by a
gintleman," bade him good-bye and went to sleep away from home for a
day with some native friends. Tariro, his Manhiki wife, had a somewhat
violent temper, and during the poker incident had indulged in much
vituperative language outside, directed at white men in general and
Lannigan in particular.

*****

"See, thou swiller of gin, see what thy folly has brought us to," said
the justly-incensed Tariro, when he came back, and with her took stock
of his trade goods; "a thousand and five hundred dollars' worth of trade
came we here with, and thou hast naught to show for it but five casks
of oil and a few stinking shark-fins; and surely the ship of the _malo_
(his firm) will be here this month."

Lannigan was in a bit of a fix. The firm he was trading for on Motukoe
didn't do business in the same free-and-easy way as did Bobby Towns'
captains and the unconventional Bully Hayes. They made him sign papers,
and every time the ship came the rufous-headed Scotch supercargo took
stock, and a violent altercation would result over the price of the
trade; but as the trader generally had a big lot of produce for the
ship, matters always ended amicably. He--or rather his wife, Tariro--was
too good a trader to have an open rupture with, and the wordy warfare
always resulted in the trader saying, in his matter-of-fact way, "Well,
I suppose it's right enough. You only rob me wanst in twelve months, and
I rob the natives here every day of my life. Give me in a case of gin,
an' I'll send ye a pig."

*****

But he had never been so much in debt as he was now. Tariro and he
talked it over, and hit upon a plan. He was to say, when the ship came,
that he had but five casks of oil; all his trade had been sold for cash,
and the cash--a thousand dollars--represented by a bag of copper bolts
picked up on the reef from an old wreck, was to be taken off to the ship
and accidentally dropped overboard as it was being passed up on deck.
This was Lannigan's idea, and Tariro straightway tied up the bolts in
readiness in many thicknesses of sail-cloth.

*****

"Here's Lannigan coming," called out the captain of the trading vessel
to the supercargo, a we