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“Now, old fellow,” I said, “we’ll call bygones bygones, and maybe you’ll let us see a little more of you than we’ve been doing lately.”

“You mean Rosalie, of gourse,” he said, snapping the words like a mad dog.

“Yes, Rosalie,” I said.

“Gaptain Branscombe,” he said, his face convulsed with passion, “that gossumate liar and hybocrite has made such a thing impossible. Far rader would I lay me in the grave–far rader would I have wild horses on me trample–than that I should indermarry with a family and bossibly betaint my innocent kinder with the plood of so shogging and unprincibled a liar. A man so lost to shame, so beplunged in cowardice and deceit that he couldn’t his own heads cut off, but must buy dem of others, and faunt himself a hero while honest worth bassed unnoticed and bushed aside.”

“It was honest worth that chopped off the head of your father-in-law’s aunt’s son!” I said.

“Gaptain,” he returned, “there are oggasions when in condrast to a liar–to a golossal liar–to one who has made a peeziness of systematic deception–a murderer is a shentlemans!”

“Oh, you villain baker!” cried Sasa, joining in. “You make tongafiti. You never want marry the girl at all. All the time you say something different. Oh, you bad mans, you break girls’ hearts–and serve you right somebody cut your head off!”

“Wish they would,” I said, out of all patience with the fellow. “First he can’t marry Rosalie because her uncle’s a murderer. Now he can’t marry her because her uncle’s a liar. Disprove that, and he’d dig up some fresh objection!”

“I lofe her! I lofe her!” protested Silver Tongue.

“Come, come,” I said, “you aren’t marrying the girl’s adopted uncle.”

“A traidor to my family? No, gaptain, dat is what I can never be,” said Silver Tongue.

“Traitor–nothing!” I said.

“Oh, the silly baker!” said Sasa.

“He speaks like a delirious person,” said Seumanutafa.

“Now about that ham,” said the Chief Justice, belligerently coming forward and speaking in rich Swedish accents, “when I send my servant for a ham, Mr. Oppenstedt, I want a good ham–not a great, coarse, fat, stinking lump of dog meat—-“

“Let’s go,” I said to Sasa; “Captain Morse is holding back the Alameda for a talk, and I know there’s an iced bucket of something in the corner of his cabin.”

“Wish the dear old captain would land and punch his head off!” said Sasa vindictively.

“Whose head?” I asked.

“Silver Tongue’s,” she returned.

* * * * *

Sasa had always plagued me to get up a moonlight sailing party on the Nukanono, a little fifteen-ton schooner of mine that plied about the Group. From one reason and another the thing had never come off, though we had talked and arranged it all time and time again. Now that I had remasted her and overhauled her copper and painted her inside and out, the subject had bobbed up again; and as I couldn’t make any objection, and as the moon for the first time in seven years had happened to be full at the same moment when the vessel happened to be free, Sasa informed me (in the autocratic manner of lovely woman dealing with an old sea horse) that the invitations were out, the music engaged, and that my part was to plank down fifty dollars, keep my mouth shut, and do what I was told.

I perceived from the beginning that there was something queer about the trip, for Sasa, usually so communicative, could scarcely be induced to speak of it at all; and then when she did it was with such a parade of mystery and reserve that I felt myself completely baffled. However, like the jossers in the poem, it wasn’t for me to reason why, and so I obediently ran about the beach, did what I was bidden, and discreetly asked no questions. I confess, though, that on the day itself my curiosity began to reach the breaking point, when I was told, with gentle impressiveness, that I was to remain in my house till the minute of nine forty-five, pull off quietly to the Nukanono, board her by the fore chains, and crouch there in the bow till I was told to get up!