e wanted a butt. Mackintosh's
exactness, his morality, his sobriety, were all fruitful subjects; his
Scot's name gave an opportunity for the usual jokes about Scotland; he
enjoyed himself thoroughly when two or three men were there and he could
make them all laugh at the expense of Mackintosh. He would say
ridiculous things about him to the natives, and Mackintosh, his
knowledge of Samoan still imperfect, would see their unrestrained mirth
when Walker had made an obscene reference to him. He smiled
good-humouredly.

"I'll say this for you, Mac," Walker would say in his gruff loud voice,
"you can take a joke."

"Was it a joke?" smiled Mackintosh. "I didn't know."

"Scots wha hae!" shouted Walker, with a bellow of laughter. "There's
only one way to make a Scotchman see a joke and that's by a surgical
operation."

Walker little knew that there was nothing Mackintosh could stand less
than chaff. He would wake in the night, the breathless night of the
rainy season, and brood sullenly over the gibe that Walker had uttered
carelessly days before. It rankled. His heart swelled with rage, and he
pictured to himself ways in which he might get even with the bully. He
had tried answering him, but Walker had a gift of repartee, coarse and
obvious, which gave him an advantage. The dullness of his intellect made
him impervious to a delicate shaft. His self-satisfaction made it
impossible to wound him. His loud voice, his bellow of laughter, were
weapons against which Mackintosh had nothing to counter, and he learned
that the wisest thing was never to betray his irritation. He learned to
control himself. But his hatred grew till it was a monomania. He watched
Walker with an insane vigilance. He fed his own self-esteem by every
instance of meanness on Walker's part, by every exhibition of childish
vanity, of cunning and of vulgarity. Walker ate greedily, noisily,
filthily, and Mackintosh watched him with satisfaction. He took note of
the foolish things he said and of his mistakes in grammar. He knew that
Walker held him in small esteem, and he found a bitter satisfaction in
his chief's opinion of him; it increased his own contempt for the
narrow, complacent old man. And it gave him a singular pleasure to know
that Walker was entirely unconscious of the hatred he felt for him. He
was a fool who liked popularity, and he blandly fancied that everyone
admired him. Once Mackintosh had overheard Walker speaking of him.

"He'll be all ri