handed down. Dusk was deepening as they came ashore; and the Cercle

Internationale (as the club is officially and significantly named) began

to shine, from under its low verandas, with the light of many lamps. The

good hours of the twenty-four drew on; the hateful, poisonous day-fly

of Nukahiva, was beginning to desist from its activity; the land-breeze

came in refreshing draughts; and the club men gathered together for the

hour of absinthe. To the commandant himself, to the man whom he was then

contending with at billiards--a trader from the next island, honorary

member of the club, and once carpenter's mate on board a Yankee

war-ship--to the doctor of the port, to the Brigadier of Gendarmerie, to

the opium farmer, and to all the white men whom the tide of commerce,

or the chances of shipwreck and desertion, had stranded on the beach of

Tai-o-hae, Mr. Loudon Dodd was formally presented; by all (since he was

a man of pleasing exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of

talk, whether in French or English) he was excellently well received;

and presently, with one of the last eight bottles of beer on a table

at his elbow, found himself the rather silent centre-piece of a voluble

group on the verandah.

Talk in the South Seas is all upon one pattern; it is a wide ocean,

indeed, but a narrow world: you shall never talk long and not hear the

name of Bully Hayes, a naval hero whose exploits and deserved extinction

left Europe cold; commerce will be touched on, copra, shell, perhaps

cotton or fungus; but in a far-away, dilettante fashion, as by men

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