said jestingly, "Nay, Tofia, I care not for
Maliea. I shall wait for Pautoe. Wilt have me, little one?"

The girl looked at him steadily, and then answered gravely:--

"Aye, if Tikki is willing that I should. But yet I will not be separated
from him."

"Then you and I will have to become partners, Meredith," said Marsh, his
eyes twinkling with amusement.

A few days after this Meredith returned from a visit to Apia.

"Marsh," he said to his friend, "I think it would be a good thing for us
both if we really did go into partnership, and put our little capitals
together. Are you so disposed?"

"Quite. There is nothing I should like better."

"Good. Well, now I have some news. I have just been looking at a little
schooner in Apia harbour. She arrived a few days ago, leaking, and
the owner will sell her for $ 1,800. She will suit us very well. I
overhauled her, and except that she is old and leaks badly, from having
been ashore, she is well worth the money. You and I can easily put her
on the beach here, get at the leak, and recopper her at a cost of a few
hundred dollars. We can have her ready for sea in three weeks. You, Ali
and myself can do all the work ourselves."

Marsh was delighted, and in less than an hour the two men, accompanied
by Ali and Tofia, were on the way to Apia, much to the wonder of Leota
and Pautoe, who were not then let into the secret--the newly-made
partners intending to give them a pleasant surprise.

On boarding the little craft, Marsh was much pleased with her, and
during the day the business of transferring the vessel to her new owners
was completed at the American Consulate, the money paid over, and the
partners put in possession.

The same evening, Ali, a splendid diver, succeeded in finding and partly
stopping the main leak, which was on the bilge on the port side, and
preparations were made to sail early in the morning for Laulii.

The partners were seated in the little cabin, smoking, and talking over
their plans for the future, when the former master and owner of the
schooner came on board to see, as he said, "how they were getting on".

He was a good-natured, intelligent old man, and had had a life-long
experience in the South Seas. By birth he was a Genoese, but he was
intensely proud of being a naturalised British subject, and, from his
youth, having sailed under the red ensign of Old England. Marsh and
Meredith made him very welcome, and he, being mightily pleased at having