o glow. She had often wondered if Hoddy would
ever go back to it. She knew now that he never would.

"Sometimes a cup of lies is a cheering thing," replied the trader.
"In wine there is truth. What about that?"

"It means that drink cheats a man into telling things he ought not
to. And there's your liver."

"Ay, and there's my liver. It'll be turning over to-morrow. But
never mind that," said McClintock grinning as he drew the dish of
bread-fruit toward him. "To-morrow I shall have a visitor. I do not
say guest because that suggests friendship; and I am no friend of
this Wastrel. I've told you about him; and you wrote a shrewd yarn
on the subject."

"The pianist?"

"Yes. He'll be here two or three days. So Mrs. Spurlock had better
stick to the bungalow."

"Ah," said Spurlock; "that kind of a man."

"Many kinds; a thorough outlaw. We've never caught him cheating at
cards; too clever; but we know he cheats. But he's witty and
amusing, and when reasonably drunk he can play the piano like a
Paderewski. He's an interpretative genius, if there ever was one.
Nobody knows what his real name is, but he's a Hollander. Kicked
out of there for something shady. A remittance man. A check arrives
in Batavia every three months. He has a grand time. Then he goes
stony, and beats his way around the islands for another three
months. Retribution has a queer way of acting sometimes. The
Wastrel--as we call him--cannot play when he's sober; hands too
shaky. He can't play cards, either, when he's sober. Alcohol--would
you believe it?--steadies his nerves and keens his brain: which is
against the laws of gravitation, you might say. He has often told
me that if he could play sober, he would go to America and reap a
fortune."

"You never told me what he is like," said Spurlock.

"I thought it best that you should imagine him. You were wide the
mark, physically; otherwise you had him pat. He is big and
powerful; one of those drinkers who show it but little outwardly.
Whisky kills him suddenly; it does not sap him gradually. In his
youth he must have been a remarkably handsome man, for he is still
handsome. I don't believe he is much past forty. A bad one in a
rough-and-tumble; all the water-front tricks. His hair is oddly
streaked with gray--I might say a dishonourable gray. Perhaps in
the beginning the women made fools of themselves over him."

"That's reasonable. I don't know how to explain it," said Spurlock,
"but music hits wom