wholly impersonal; I have seen the same in the eyes of portrait-

painters. The counts upon which whites have been deported are

mainly four: cheating Tembinok', meddling overmuch with copra,

which is the source of his wealth, and one of the sinews of his

power, 'PEAKING, and political intrigue. I felt guiltless upon

all; but how to show it? I would not have taken copra in a gift:

how to express that quality by my dinner-table bearing? The rest

of the party shared my innocence and my embarrassment. They shared

also in my mortification when after two whole meal-times and the

odd moments of an afternoon devoted to this reconnoitring,

Tembinok' took his leave in silence. Next morning, the same

undisguised study, the same silence, was resumed; and the second

day had come to its maturity before I was informed abruptly that I

had stood the ordeal. 'I look your eye. You good man. You no

lie,' said the king: a doubtful compliment to a writer of romance.

Later he explained he did not quite judge by the eye only, but the

mouth as well. 'Tuppoti I see man,' he explained. 'I no tavvy

good man, bad man. I look eye, look mouth. Then I tavvy. Look

EYE, look mouth,' he repeated. And indeed in our case the mouth

had the most to do with it, and it was by our talk that we gained

admission to the island; the king promising himself (and I believe

really amassing) a vast amount of useful knowledge ere we left.

The terms of our admission were as follows: We were to choose a

site, and the king should there build us a town. His people should

work for us, but the king only was to give them orders. One of his

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>