liquor up, this time o'
year. If it isn't one pretext it's another. Things folks have been kind
of hesitating over, in the name of morals, they start out and perform,
regardless. The authorities, they get worried because a Kanaka's spree
lands him, like as not, in a blackbirder. Mighty queer craft hang round
at this season. There ain't supposed to be anything doing in these
blessed islands that ain't aboveboard, but 'tisn't as though the place
was run by Americans."

"And I am to watch Ching Po? Where does he come in?"

"I wish't I knew. He makes money out of it somehow. Dope, I suppose. Old
man Dubois ain't his only customer, by a long shot."

"Ching Po isn't likely to go near French Eva, is he? They don't speak,
I've noticed."

"No, they don't. But that Chink's little ways are apt to be indirect.
She's afraid of him--afraid of the dust under her feet, as you might
say."

Stires puffed meditatively at his pipe. Then a piratical-looking
customer intervened, and I left.

Leisurely, all this, and not significant to the unpeeled eye. And then,
within twenty-four hours of the time when I had left Stires, things
began to happen. It was as if a tableau had suddenly decided to become a
"movie." All those fixed types began to dash about and register the most
inconvenient emotions. Let me set down a few facts diary fashion.

To begin with, when I got up the next morning, Joe had disappeared. No
sign of breakfast, no smell of coffee. It was late for breakfast at
Dubois's, and I started out to get my own. There were no eggs, and I
sauntered over to French Eva's to purchase a few. The town looked queer
to me as I walked its grassy streets. Only when I turned into the lane
that led to French Eva's did I realize why. It was swept clean of
natives. There weren't any. Not a stevedore, not a fisherman, not a
brown fruit-vender did I see.

French Eva greeted me impatiently. She was not doing business,
evidently, for she wore her silk dress and white canvas shoes. Also, a
hat. Her face was whiter than ever, and, just offhand, I should have
said that something had shaken her. She would not let me in, but made me
wait while she fetched the eggs. I took them away in a little basket of
plaited palm-fronds, and walked through the compound as nonchalantly as
I could, pretending that I had not seen what I knew I had seen--Ching
Po's face within, a foot or two behind the window opening. It startled
me so much that I resolved to keep aw