an hour.

Presently we heard a footfall upon the path which led to the boat-shed,
and then an old man, naked but for his _titi_, or waist-girdle of grass,
came out into the moonlight, and greeted us in a quavering, cracked
voice.

"_Aue!_ white man, my dear friend. So thou and Temana sit here in the
moonlight!"

"Even so, Pakfa, most excellent and good old man. Sit ye here beside us.
Nay, not there, but here on mine own mat. So. Hast thy pipe with thee?"

The ancient chuckled, and his wrinkled old face beamed as he untwisted a
black and stumpy clay from his perforated and pendulous ear-lobe, which
hung full down upon his shoulder, and, turning it upside down, tapped
the palm of his left hand with it.

"See!" he said, with another wheezing, half-whispered, half-strangled
laugh, "see and hear the emptiness thereof! Nothing has been in its
belly since cockcrow. And until now have I hungered for a smoke. Twice
did I think to come to thee to-day and ask thee for _kaitalafu_ (credit)
for five sticks of tobacco, but I said to my pipe, 'Nay, let us wait
till night time.' For see, friend of my heart, there are ever greedy
eyes which watch the coming and going of a poor old man; and had I
gotten the good God-given tobacco from thee by daylight, friends would
arise all around me as I passed through the village to my house. And
then, lo, the five sticks would become but one!"

"Pakia," I said in English, as I gave him a piece of tobacco and my
knife, "you are a philosopher."

He stopped suddenly, and placing one hand on my knee, looked wistfully
into my face, as an inquiring child looks into the eyes of its mother.

"Tell me, what is that?"

I tried to find a synonym. "It means that you are a _tagata poto_--a
wise man."

The old, brown, bald head nodded, and the dark, merry eyes danced.

"Aye, aye. Old I may be, and useless, but I have lived--I have lived.
And though when I am dead my children and grandchildren will make a
_tagi_ over me, I shall laugh, for I know that of one hundred tears,
ninety and nine will be for the tobacco and the biscuit and the rice
that with me will vanish!"

He filled and lit his pipe, and then, raising one skinny, tattooed arm,
pointed to the moon.

"Hast such a moon as that in _papalagi_ land?"

"Sometimes."

"Aye, sometimes. But not always. No, not always. I know, I know. See, my
friend; let us talk. I am full of talk to-night. You are a good man, and
I, old Pakfa, have seen many t