us descriptions, eggs, chickens of astounding skinniness, and a
half-grown porker, and the prices demanded, in what the skipper termed
"truck", were so ridiculously low that in the course of an hour's lively
bargaining we completely emptied the canoe of her contents.

When at length the bargaining was concluded, and the savage salesman was
about to depart, he turned to the skipper and asked, in particularly
good English:

"You stop it here long, Cap'n?"

"What business is that of your'n, sonny?" retorted Brown, his suspicions
suddenly awakened again.

"Name it me Oahika, not `sonny', Cap'n," returned the savage. "If
schooner stop it here, Oahika like it come off every day, bring it
plenty fine fruit fresh fis' chicken-an-egg."

"Oh, that's your game, is it?" observed Brown, reassured. "Want the
app'intment of bumboat man in or'nary to this here schooner, eh?"

Oahika's reply consisted merely of a good-humoured grin, which exhibited
a remarkably fine set of teeth, deeply stained with betel nut. Probably
his comprehension of "Old Man" Brown's question was of the slenderest.
The skipper, however, accepted the grin as an affirmative, and
graciously remarked:

"Very well, then; you can come off again to-morrow, and see if we wants
anything else. And say, the next time that you brings off chickens, let
'em be chickens, not livin' skelintons. You sabby?"

Again Oahika smiled, the smile of the man who wishes to convey the
impression that he "sabbys" perfectly, while in reality he does nothing
of the kind.

"That's all right, then," continued Brown. "Now you can git away ashore
agin as fast as you like, for we're goin' to be busy here."

The native, who probably comprehended the skipper's gestures better than
he did his words, at once turned and made toward the rail, but was
recalled by Brown, who enquired, in an offhand, casual sort of way:

"Say, you, Oah--what's-your-name--you don't happen to have no sandalwood
ashore there, I s'pose?"

"Sandalwood!" repeated the savage. "I think it some mans got a leetle.
You want it sandalwood, Cap'n?"

"Well, I guess I could do with a little, if there was any goin' cheap,"
returned the skipper.

"You like it me ask them mans come see you, Cap'n?" demanded Oahika.

"Well, yes, I guess you may," replied the skipper. "Ask 'em to come off
to-morrow mornin', bringin' the wood with 'em, and tell 'em that if
they're willin' to let it go cheap I'll buy it off 'em."

The