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They 're good stiffs all right, and every one has a membership card in the I. W. W. applied for." When we went outside, I saw that the Dummy who had been a witness of the scene in the hall, had a large package of fish in the surrey, and all around there were other packages of them. The men had been selling to those who came to Fa'a for them, the law extending only to the market in Papeete.
The King of Apamama said it all when he divided the whites into three classes, 'First, him cheat a litty; second, him cheat plenty; and third, him cheat too much." Stroganoff got on his feet, rubbed his knees to limber them, and began to move off slowly toward Fa'a, his place of abode. "But, Mr. Stroganoff," I called to him, "you said all that about the Tahitians, also."
In Punaauia, the next district to Fa'a, was a schoolhouse and on it a sign: 2 x 2 = 4. M. Souvy, a government printer of Tahiti, had given the site out of his humble savings. By the sign, in his blunt way, he struck at education which does not teach the simple necessity of progress common sense. "Cela saute aux yeux," he had said.
M. Lontane took full credit for the discovery of what he termed "A complot that would rival the Dreyfus case." He struck his chest, and asked me sternly if I knew of M. LeCoq, the great detective, of Emile Gaboriau. Kelly was arrested in the midst of his dancing soirée at Fa'a.
He stayed in his chicken-coop except when the opportunities came for gaining a few francs, at steamer-time, and when sheer boredom drove him to Papeete for converse. With his dislike for the natives and his disdainful attitude toward the French, he had to seek other nationals in town, for there were none at Fa'a except a Chinese storekeeper.
I scrape along like a watch-dog in a sausage factory, getting sufficient to eat, but fearful all the time that the job will kill me. Most of the time I live a few kilometers from Papeete, toward Fa'a, and come in to town about steamer-time. I sleep in the chicken-coop or anywhere. I make about forty francs a month." He stamped upon the grass.
There wait the automobiles to carry the pleasure bent to Kelly's grove at Fa'a, where the maxixe and the tango rage, the hula-dancers quiver and quaver, and wassail has no bounds. When the whites are at dinner, the natives meet in the market-place, which is the agora, as the place du gouvernment is the forum of the dance and music of these ocean Greeks.
At Fa'a a postwoman appeared. Before opening the mail-box she tarried to light a cigarette and to chat with the driver about the new picture at the cinema in Papeete. She commented laughingly on the writers and addressees of the letters, and flirted with a passenger.
We jogged along, and as we approached Fa'a, I lit a match and looked at my watch. It was nearly two o'clock. The Dummy stopped the horse at Kelly's dance-hall in a palm grove. The building was of bamboo and thatch, with a smooth floor of Oregon pine, and was a former himene house. Kelly had rented it from the church authorities.
These had had their skins removed, and were black and not desirable-looking, but they were delicious and rare. In turn, not wishing to exaggerate the difference between our means, I gave him a box of cigars I had brought from America. I visited him at Fa'a, and found his coop had been a poultry shelter, and was humble, indeed; but I had slept a hundred nights in many countries in worse.
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