r mind--he was, is, and ever will be, TOMMY HADDON![51]
As I don't believe you to be inspired, I suspect you to have suspected
this. At least it was a mighty happy suspicion. You are quite right:
Tommy is really "a good chap," though about as comic as they make them.

I was extremely interested in your Fiji legend, and perhaps even more so
in your capital account of the _Curacoa's_ misadventure. Alas! we have
nothing so thrilling to relate. All hangs and fools on in this isle of
mis-government, without change, though not without novelty, but wholly
without hope, unless perhaps you should consider it hopeful that I am
still more immediately threatened with arrest. The confounded thing is,
that if it comes off, I shall be sent away in the _Ringarooma_ instead
of the _Curacoa_. The former ship burst upon us by the run--she had been
sent off by despatch and without orders--and to make me a little more
easy in my mind she brought newspapers clamouring for my incarceration.
Since then I have had a conversation with the German Consul. He said he
had read a review of my Samoa book, and if the review were fair, must
regard it as an insult, and one that would have to be resented. At the
same time, I learn that letters addressed to the German squadron lie for
them here in the Post Office. Reports are current of other English ships
being on the way--I hope to goodness yours will be among the number. And
I gather from one thing and another that there must be a holy row going
on between the powers at home, and that the issue (like all else
connected with Samoa) is on the knees of the gods. One thing, however,
is pretty sure--_if_ that issue prove to be a German protectorate, I
shall have to tramp. Can you give us any advice as to a fresh field of
energy? We have been searching the atlas, and it seems difficult to fill
the bill. How would Rarotonga do? I forget if you have been there. The
best of it is that my new house is going up like winking, and I am
dictating this letter to the accompaniment of saws and hammers. A
hundred black boys and about a score draught oxen perished, or at least
barely escaped with their lives, from the mud holes on our road,
bringing up the materials. It will be a fine legacy to H.I.G.M.'s
protectorate, and doubtless the Governor will take it for his country
house.[51] The Ringarooma people, by the way, seem very nice. I liked
Stansfield particularly.

Our middy[53] has gone up to San Francisco in pursuit