headed for the Gilberts that first trip, an'
managed to pick up a fair consignment of labour. We touched in at
Nonuti the very last place, which, as I says, is on the island o'
Aranuka, right under the Hakatuea volcano. There was some
strappin' big buck native niggers there that would fetch $300 a
head Mex, an' so me an' Bull goes ashore to pow-wow with the
chief. He was a fat old boy named Poui-Slam-Bang, or some such
name, an' he received us as nice as you please. Me an' Bull
rubbed noses with Poui-Slam-Bang an' all the head men, and they
give a big feed in our honour. Roast pig an' roast duck an'
stewed chicken an' all the tropical trimmin's we had, Mac,
including a little barrel o' furniture polish that Bull brought
ashore, labelled Three Star Hennessy on the outside an' Three Ply
Deviltry inside.

"While we was at the feast, with everybody squattin' around on
their hind legs, pokin' their mits into a big wooden bowl,
Poui-Slam-Bang pipes up his only daughter, a lovely wench about
seventeen years old with a name that nobody can pronounce. I call
her Pinky, and of all the women I ever meets, black, white,
brown, red, or yellow, this Pinky is the loveliest, and has 'em
all hull down. She's wearin' a palm leaf petticoat and a string
o' shark's teeth around her neck with an empty sardine box for a
pendant. She has flowers in her hair, which is braided in
pig-tails, different from the other girls. Her eyes--McGuffey,
_them eyes_! Like a pair of fireflies floatin' in sorghum. And as
she stands there working her toes in th' sand, she never takes
her eyes off them fine red whiskers o' mine.

"Bull gives her a cigar, and it's plain that he's taken with her,
but she never so much as looks at Bull. My whiskers has done the
trick--so bimeby, when all hands is feeling jolly, including me
an' McGinty, I sidles up to Pinky an' sorter gives her to
understand that she wouldn't have to clap me in irons to fondle
them red whiskers o' mine. She sticks a flower in them, Mac,
s'help me, and then giggles foolish an' ducks into the bush.

"Well, we rigs up a deal with Poui-Slam-Bang and next afternoon
stand out for the entrance with forty odd head of labour in
excess of what we had when we arrived. We'd cleared the reef, and
was comin' about around Hakatuea Head, when what d'ye suppose we
sight? Nothin' more or less than Miss Pinky Poui-Slam-Bang
swimmin' right across our bows. She was more than a mile out an'
comin' like a shark, h