e!"

"O To'oto'o," said Seumanutafa, "this house is mine; this land is mine;
the plantation _i uta_ is mine also. Thou livest under the shadow of my
power, and it is meet thou shouldst pay in service for the bounty thou
hast so long enjoyed. First I spoke to thee as one brave man to another;
then as a Christian to a fellow-Christian; now I command thee as thy
chief, and verily thou shalt obey!"

"And I will add to that twenty, making it twenty-five," I said.

"And Rosalie shall marry her Silver Tongue after all," said Sasa.

To'oto'o argued a little more for form's sake, and blustered somewhat
about the Chief Justice, and how he would fight the matter out in the
courts; but Seumanutafa's tone grew peremptory, and the old fellow
finally gave way all round. Then _'ava_ was brought in, the
arrangements made for the morrow, and we at length said _tofa_ on the
threshold, well pleased with our night's work.

* * * * *

I wish you could have seen us next day going through the town in a
little procession, headed by To'oto'o lashed to a pole and borne by a
crowd of retainers. There was a flavor of the burial of Sir John Moore
about the whole business--especially the hush--and not a funeral note
being heard; we marching with measured tread, the municipal police
bringing up the rear, and Seumanutafa in the center, nearly seven feet
high, and bearing a white umbrella above his stately head.

Silver Tongue was standing in the front of his shop having an
altercation with the Chief Justice about a ham (for he did a little in
groceries as well as baked) as we hove in sight and began to file down
the lane to Papalangi Mativa's quarters behind the Southern Cross
Bakery. I suppose Silver Tongue thought our man was hurt, or something,
for he came running after us with a bottle of square-face and a packet
of first aid to the wounded, elbowing his way excitedly through the
crowd to where we had deposited To'oto'o at the feet of Papalangi
Mativa. He was the most astonished baker in the South Seas as he saw who
lay there in the jumble of beef and biscuit, and for a moment was too
stupefied to let out a word.

I don't mean to go into the speech-making part of the performance, for
what between Seumanutafa and Papalangi Mativa, and the talking-man Sasa
had lent me for the occasion, and a divinity student who happened along,
and somebody who said he was Fale Upolu and spoke for the entire Group,
and an aged