o good, and finally he went into his room and set out the rest of the
day on one of the trunks.

I went along the same evening to talk it over with Tom Riley, the other
trader in Manihiki, who, in spite of our being in opposition and all
that, was more like my own born brother than a rival in business. We
never let down the price of shell or copra on each other, and lined up
shoulder to shoulder if a third party tried to break in, and so we had
enough for both of us and a tidy bit over. Tom was afire to hear all
about Old Dibs, and had been getting bulletins the whole afternoon from
the Kanakas, down to the twenty dollars and the five trunks, and even
the way he sighed.

Tom knew right away he was a defaulter, and said we were in powerful
luck to have got him. It was fine of Tom to take it like that, for what
luck there was was mine, and he said he'd help out with chickens and
fresh fish and some extra superior canned stuff he had, so that Old Dibs
would be comfortable and want to stay. Tom was a good deal like that
professor who could make a prehistoric animal out of one prehistoric
bone, and then, when later on they discovered the whole beast entire, it
was head and tail with the one he had drawn on the blackboard. And by
the time the square-face had made a second round, Tom's fancy had flown
higher than a yellow-back novel, Old Dibs being dead, blessing me with
his last breath and making me the heir of all his riches!

Tom walked home with me, still talking, for we had now bought a
ninety-ton schooner with my legacy, me captain and him supercargo, and
we had taken out French naturalization papers so we might be free of the
Paumotu and Tubuai groups. When we said good night, whispering so as not
to disturb Old Dibs, who was snoring out serene, it had grown to be a
fleet, with headquarters at Papiete, and a steam service to 'Frisco! We
were a pair of boys, both of us, and could make squid taste like lamb
chops just by telling ourselves it was so!

I reckon Old Dibs was a little suspicious of me and Tom, and small blame
to him for that, the Islands being pretty full of tough customers, with
never no law nor order nor nobody to appeal to in trouble unless it was
your gun. He made me put a stout bolt on his door and chicken wire over
the windows, and always slept with the lamp burning in his room; and it
was noticeable, too, that he never cared to wander far away from the
house. He was given to playing the flute in the