u this morning, Bateman," he said then, "I seemed to see
myself as I was two years ago. The same collar, and the same shoes, the
same blue suit, the same energy. The same determination. By God, I was
energetic. The sleepy methods of this place made my blood tingle. I went
about and everywhere I saw possibilities for development and enterprise.
There were fortunes to be made here. It seemed to me absurd that the
copra should be taken away from here in sacks and the oil extracted in
America. It would be far more economical to do all that on the spot,
with cheap labour, and save freight, and I saw already the vast
factories springing up on the island. Then the way they extracted it
from the coconut seemed to me hopelessly inadequate, and I invented a
machine which divided the nut and scooped out the meat at the rate of
two hundred and forty an hour. The harbour was not large enough. I made
plans to enlarge it, then to form a syndicate to buy land, put up two or
three large hotels, and bungalows for occasional residents; I had a
scheme for improving the steamer service in order to attract visitors
from California. In twenty years, instead of this half French, lazy
little town of Papeete I saw a great American city with ten-story
buildings and street-cars, a theatre and an opera house, a stock
exchange and a mayor."

"But go ahead, Edward," cried Bateman, springing up from the chair in
excitement. "You've got the ideas and the capacity. Why, you'll become
the richest man between Australia and the States."

Edward chuckled softly.

"But I don't want to," he said.

"Do you mean to say you don't want money, big money, money running into
millions? Do you know what you can do with it? Do you know the power it
brings? And if you don't care about it for yourself think what you can
do, opening new channels for human enterprise, giving occupation to
thousands. My brain reels at the visions your words have conjured up."

"Sit down, then, my dear Bateman," laughed Edward. "My machine for
cutting the coconuts will always remain unused, and so far as I'm
concerned street-cars shall never run in the idle streets of Papeete."

Bateman sank heavily into his chair.

"I don't understand you," he said.

"It came upon me little by little. I came to like the life here, with
its ease and its leisure, and the people, with their good-nature and
their happy smiling faces. I began to think. I'd never had time to do
that before. I began to re