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“Here, you give me a needle and cotton and I’ll mend that net of yours, while you go on with your unpacking. Dinner’s at one. Dr. Macphail, you’d better go down to the wharf and see that your heavy luggage has been put in a dry place. You know what these natives are, they’re quite capable of storing it where the rain will beat in on it all the time.”

The doctor put on his waterproof again and went downstairs. At the door Mr. Horn was standing in conversation with the quartermaster of the ship they had just arrived in and a second-class passenger whom Dr. Macphail had seen several times on board. The quartermaster, a little, shrivelled man, extremely dirty, nodded to him as he passed.

“This is a bad job about the measles, doc,” he said.”I see you’ve fixed yourself up already.”

Dr. Macphail thought he was rather familiar, but he was a timid Man and he did not take offence easily.

“Yes, we’ve got a room upstairs.”

“Miss Thompson was s
ailing with you to Apia, so I’ve brought her along here.”

The quartermaster pointed with his thumb to the woman standing by his side. She was twenty-seven perhaps, plump, and in a coarse fashion pretty. She wore a white dress and a large white hat. Her fat calves in white cotton stockings bulged over the tops of long white boots in glace kid. She gave Macphail an ingratiating smile.

“The feller’s tryin’ to soak me a dollar and a half a day for the meanest sized room,” she said in a hoarse voice.

“I tell you she’s a friend of mine, Jo,” said the quartermaster.”She can’t pay more than a dollar, and you’ve sure got to take her for that.”

The trader was fat and smooth and quietly smiling.”Well, if you put it like that, Mr. Swan, I’ll see what I can do about it. I’ll talk to Mrs. Horn and if we think we can make a reduction we will.”

“Don’t try to pull that stuff with me,” said Miss Thompson.”We’ll settle this right now. You get a dollar a day for the room and not one bean more.”

Dr. Macphail smiled. He admired the effrontery with which she bargained. He was the sort of man who always paid what he was asked. He preferred to be over-charged than to haggle. The trader sighed.

“Well, to oblige Mr. Swan I’ll take it.”

“That’s the goods,” said Miss Thompson.”Come right in and have a shot of hooch. I’ve got some real good rye in that grip if you’ll bring it’ along, Mr. Swan. You come along too, doctor.”

“Oh, I don’t think I will, thank you,” he answered.”I’m just going down to see that our luggage is all right.”

He stepped out into the rain. It swept in from the opening of the harbour in sheets and the opposite shore was all blurred. He passed two or three natives clad in nothing but the lava-lava, with huge umbrellas over them. They walked finely, with leisurely movements, very upright; and they smiled and greeted him in a strange tongue as they went by.

It was nearly dinner-time when he got back, and their meal was laid in the trader’s parlour. It was a room designed not to live in but for purposes of prestige, and it had a musty, melancholy air. A suite of stamped plush was arranged neatly round the walls, and from the middle of the ceiling, protected from the flies by yellow tissue paper, hung a gilt chandelier. Davidson did not come.

“I know he went to call on the governor,” said Mrs. Davidson, “and I guess he’s kept him to dinner.”