the schooner in a wretched old canoe, whose outrigger was
so insecurely fastened that it threatened to come adrift every instant.
The old man grinned as he recognised Denison; then, pipe in mouth, he
went boldly out through the passage between the lines of roaring surf
into the tumbling blue beyond.

At ten o'clock, just as the supercargo and the skipper were taking their
last nip before turning in, the ancient slipped quietly alongside in
his canoe, and clambered on deck. In his right hand he carried a big
salmon-like fish, weighing about 20 lbs. Laying it down on the deck, he
pointed to it.

"Plenty more in canoe like that. You want some more?"

Denison went to the side and looked over. The canoe was loaded down to
the gunwale with the weight of fish--fish that the lazy, loafing Apian
natives caught but rarely. The old man passed up two or three more, took
a glass of grog, and paddled ashore.

Next morning he repaid the borrowed money and showed Denison
fifteen dollars--the result of his first night's work in Samoa. The
saloon-keepers and other white people said he was a treasure. Fish in
Apia were dear, and hard to get.

*****

On the following Sunday a marriage procession entered the Rarotongan
chapel in Matafele, and Tetarreo (otherwise *Reo) was united to one
of the prettiest and not _very_ disreputable native girls in the town,
whose parents recognised that 'Reo was likely to prove an eminently
lucrative and squeezable son-in-law. Denison was best man, and gave
the bride a five-dollar American gold piece (having previously made a
private arrangement with the bridegroom that he was to receive value for
it in fish).

'Reo's wife's relatives built the newly-married couple a house on
Matautu Point, and 'Reo spent thirty-five dollars in giving the bride's
local connections a feast. Then the news spread, and cousins and second
cousins and various breeds of aunts and half-uncles travelled up to
Matautu Point to partake of his hospitality. He did his best, but in a
day or so remarked sadly that he could not catch fish fast enough in
a poor canoe. If he had a boat he could make fifty dollars a week,
he said; and with fifty dollars a week he could entertain his wife's
honoured friends continuously and in a befitting manner. The relatives
consulted, and, thinking they had "a good thing," subscribed, and bought
a boat (on credit) from the German firm, giving a mortgage on a piece
of land as security. Then they pres