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He cannot deny what is true. England, France, Germany, America, all the great Papalangi countries, have the paper-money system. It works. From century to century it works. I challenge you, Ieremia, as an honest man, as one who was once a zealous worker in the Lord's vineyard, I challenge you to deny that in the great Papalangi countries the system works."
I suppose Silver Tongue thought our man was hurt, or something, for he came running after us with a bottle of square-face and a packet of first aid to the wounded, elbowing his way excitedly through the crowd to where we had deposited To'oto'o at the feet of Papalangi Mativa.
Seumanutafa began mild, for he was a past master in the art of graduation, and thought to go slow at first. To'oto'o was informed that he had to make ifonga for the death of O and be carried on the morrow by the taulelea to Papalangi Mativa's house behind the bakery.
I don't mean to go into the speech-making part of the performance, for what between Seumanutafa and Papalangi Mativa, and the talking-man Sasa had lent me for the occasion, and a divinity student who happened along, and somebody who said he was Fale Upolu and spoke for the entire Group, and an aged faipule from the Union Islands who seemed to have some kind of a grievance about his father's head, and the Chief Justice who had to butt in with the capitation tax we were kept there a matter of three hours or more, until at last the principals officially made it up, To'oto'o was forgiven, and everything ended happily.
As soon as the canoe was beached, and we were all fairly ashore, the natives came forward, somewhat hastily, from the skirt of the wood, probably in the expectation of receiving further presents; but our men, mistaking this sudden advance for a hostile movement, laid hold of the canoe, and would have put her into the water again, had not Rokoa, armed with a heavy paddle, and backed by Barton with his pistols, interfered with so much decision and vigour, that their fears began to take a new direction and they came to the sensible conclusion, that they had better run the risk of being roasted and eaten by the cannibals, than encounter the far more immediate danger of having their heads broken by the club of their chief, or their bodies bored through by the pistol-balls of the young Papalangi.
Ieremia could not deny, and his fingers played nervously with the fastening of the basket on his knees. "You see, it is as I have said," Cornelius continued. "Ieremia agrees that it is so. Therefore, I ask you, all good people of Fitu-Iva, if a system is good for the Papalangi countries, why is it not good for Fitu-Iva?" "It is not the same!" Ieremia cried.
They thought that there was solidity there as well as extension; and therefore a distant voyage to some other island might be called a visit to some part of the heavens. When white men made their appearance, it was thought that they and the vessel which brought them had in some way broken through the heavens; and, to this day white men are called Papalangi, or Heaven-bursters.
I found him, as usual, on the mats of the native house, glumly smoking a pipe and talking politics with Papalangi Mativa. His lean, dark, handsome face was overcast, his eyes uneasy, and had I not known him for a brave man I should have thought that he was frightened. He was certainly very curt and short in greeting me, and I had a dim perception that my visit was unwelcome.
I said, which in Kanaka is being sympathetic. "Dat is not all," said Silver Tongue. "Listen, gabtain!" "I'm listening," I said. "The warrior that killed O was To'oto'o, the matai," continued Papalangi Mativa with the air of one announcing the end of the world. "To'oto'o!" I said in all innocence.
Indeed, if Silver Tongue had a fault it was a certain moroseness and fierceness of temper, a readiness and even an apparent pleasure in taking offense, that made him somewhat of a solitary in our midst and threw him more than ever on the companionship of his own Kanakas; so that at night, when one had occasion to seek him out, he was usually to be found on the mats of his native house, smoking his pipe or playing sweepy with his bulky father-in-law, Papalangi Mativa.
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