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Kersdale and McVeigh were still at the other end of the wharf, talking earnestly politics, of course, for both were head- over-heels in that particular game. When Lucy Mokunui passed me, I stole a look at her. She was beautiful. She was beautiful by our standards, as well one of those rare blossoms that occur but once in generations. And she, of all women, was doomed to Molokai.
"I forgot this was the twenty-second," he said. "Tell Jock I'm dead. I wish I were for a week." "Ought to be dead." McVeigh threw his match away. "A man who ignores his fellow-beings as you've ignored yours of late has no right to live. Better look out. Don't take long to be forgotten. Good night." It was true that it didn't take long to be forgotten.
She straight on board, and aft on the open deck where the lepers huddled by the rail, wailing now, to their dear ones on shore. The lines were cast off, and the Noeau began to move away from the wharf. The wailing increased. Such grief and despair! I was just resolving that never again would I be a witness to the sailing of the Noeau, when McVeigh and Kersdale returned.
The club was just beginning a prize shoot for a cup put up by Mr. McVeigh, who is also a member of the club, as also are Dr. Goodhue and Dr. All about us, in the shooting booth, were the lepers. Lepers and non-lepers were using the same guns, and all were rubbing shoulders in the confined space. The majority of the lepers were Hawaiians. Sitting beside me on a bench was a Norwegian.
The voice was Bleeker McVeigh's. "Where are the wedding garments? Don't mean you're not going!" "Going where?" Van Landing fell into step. "Whose wedding?" McVeigh lighted a fresh cigarette. "You ought to be hung. I tell you now you won't be bidden to my wedding. Why did you tell Jockie you'd come, if you didn't intend to?" Van Landing stopped and for a minute stared at the man beside him.
Harriwell pointed triumphantly at a big packing case in a dusty corner. "Well, then where did the beggar get that Snider?" harped Mr. Brown. But just then McTavish lifted the packing case. The manager started, then tore off the lid. The case was empty. They gazed at one another in horrified silence. Harriwell drooped wearily. Then McVeigh cursed.
McVeigh comes up to Honolulu, the bootblack shines his shoes for him and says: "Say, Boss, I lost a good home down there. Yes, sir, I lost a good home." Then his voice sinks to a confidential whisper as he says, "Say, Boss, can't I go back? Can't you fix it for me so as I can go back?"
McVeigh, the superintendent of the settlement, was overseeing the embarkation, and to him I was introduced, also to Dr. Georges, one of the Board of Health physicians whom I had already met at Kalihi. The lepers were a woebegone lot. The faces of the majority were hideous too horrible for me to describe.
Patton can always go you one better," he admitted, grinningly. They had luncheon together, and they were a good deal more like sophomores in college than like a United States Senator and a big railroad man. "You don't think there's any danger of their getting through too soon?" McVeigh kept asking, anxiously. "Not a bit," the Senator assured him. "They can't possibly make it before three.
The secretary whipped out a note-book and pencil. "Shall I take your message? I can send it when I go back to the office." "Thank you," said Ford; then he began to dictate, slowly and methodically: "To S.J. Colbrith, care McVeigh and Mackie, New York. This is to recall my objections to MacMorrogh Brothers, as stated in letter of the twenty-fifth from Chicago.
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