piece of wood. When he had concluded it he hung the note round my neck like a label. It bore the words :—

"Pursy Pomer-B. B. Hi scent 'im. Do heverythink yer can, han oblege RRRY. Hen Bee, that's me."

Next morning, with the inconsistency of human nature, I was quite chokey at the thought of going away and leaving my dear, dear, kind old friend, and my two pleasant companions, whom I had found out were, in spite of their behaviour, not only human, but very far superior to me in intellect (I know Cookee thought so too), and whose perseverance began where mine left off. It had been a happy little life time, and I only found out how much I had settled down to it and enjoyed it when I had to come away.

The teamster came, and only my Happy Island friends could have been more thoughtful and more tender than this goodhearted old man. He gave me spare clothes and a little money, embraced me, said a kind of grace over me, and made us both cry with his long and quavering Hay-men!

Just as I was lifting my leg to climb up into the waggon he grew more solemn than ever, and whispered huskily, "Haddoo, Pomer, Haddoo, Haddoo; han' if they hever wants a good plain cook han baker, hallood, Pomer, hallood-to-to presint company his allus hexpected. Trust B. B. has you trust hin— wot's hupstairs, Pomer? Now try again!"

"Heaven," said I, smiling and sobbing both together.

"Grow'd, likeways himproving. Hup with yer han' hoff yer goes. Hup's the word, hain't it hold chum? Hexcept in a waggon, says you, were the word his-down and snug. Hotherways, Hup!"

Cookee stood by the door with a very old and heavy pair of sea boots, one in each hand, ready to be heaved after me for good luck.

wen Hi

says three!

Now, Mike," said he to the driver, hoff you goes. Ready? One-two-thr- - !"

AH SAM, AH FAT, AND AH PO.

219

Before he got three out, his arms, which had begun to swing the boots, were seized and pinned down to his sides, while two shrill voices cried out—

"By-an'-by, Bossy! Me want speakee my flend, Ah Po," which made two hars according to Cookee's calculation.

In a twinkling, a couple of pairs of legs and arms were up in the waggon. Each of them took one of my hands and shook away, while Ah Fat (number three, only Cookee would never allow it), did the talking.

"Ah Po, you welly good number-one man. solly you go away. You give good soun'. you."

We too much Heap thank-y

As they both said this, they each slipped two francs and a half into my hands, and went overboard like a pair of superfluous wheels.

"One-two-three !" shouted Cookee, and away I went. Sitting down on the floor of the waggon I turned my face back towards my little home.

First one boot, and then the other, flew after me, followed by the two "Hars," head over heels, as if they had been thrown after me too. This was the last I saw of their behaviour; and as I looked at it, and at Cookee waving his hat like a frantic windmill in the distance, my lips quivered with the bitterness of parting, and my eyes began to smart and swim. I found that the last of it was as hard to stand as the first of it; and I turned to gaze with anything but satisfaction then upon the open empty plain before me.

Ah Sam! Ah Fat! The uncouthness of these names, which always seemed to want a note of exclamation after them, had been overgrown and hidden by the trailing tendrils of my torn affection. One reason of my attachment to them was that they were strangers in that land as well as I.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE HOTEL BUSINESS.

MIKE was a very pleasant fellow, the first Irishman I had ever met. He talked incessantly, and told me one funny story after another, till my sides ached.

The treatment the English language received at the hands, or rather mouths, of my China "flends," Cookee, and Mike, led me to ponder on its toughness, seeing that it could go through so much and live; not being then acquainted with any of the dead languages.

Thus I had not much time to fret over the separation from my kind friends in the little wayside inn. But I recollect thinking that I had rather be the one going away than the one left behind, when two friends must part; and then I thought of Diara, who had gone away, and I wondered where he was, and if he knew what I was doing.

Our road did at last join the main highway, beyond Paita a long distance. We travelled faster when we got off the soft ground on to the hard road, and then my wonder at the toughness of language changed into wonder at the toughness of the human body and bones.

If I attempted to speak, I bit my tongue, or clashed my teeth together, so Mike and I allowed the clatter of the waggon to have it all to itself. At last I had to stand up, being convinced that it was the only way to ensure being ever able to sit down again. Nothing but this never ceasing shaking and clatter happened all the way to Nouméa. We stopped once or twice, and I held the reins from inside the cart while Mike delivered his messages and parcels.

It was late in the afternoon when Nouméa began to spring up round about us. How I drank in the first breath of air that

MR. BENJAMIN BANG.

221

blew into our faces, straight from the steep blue misty ocean: the beginning of that same blue water which dashed against the cliffs at Happy Island!

I felt that if I only had a little boat, and was once out on the free waves, that I could find my way there. That distressing feeling of being so far off ceased at the first glimpse of the continuous sea.

We passed the merciful open church, with its lamps and music, and then wound down into the midst of the town. In a few minutes we drew up at the iron verandah of a twostoried iron house in a side street.

Here was another inscription, but not half so interesting as Cookee's. It was in no hurry, and there was nobody objectionable expected round the corner. The letters stood as straight and regular as if they had spent their life in the continual contemplation of soldiers, as they probably had.

Their duty was to inform the public that the building they adorned was none other than the International Hotel-Proprietor, Mr. Benjamin Bang; and this they did in a stiff matter-of-fact way, as if they took no interest in it. There was no playfulness about them, and I could not help comparing them unfavourably with Mike, who told me to come down and be delivered, as if I had been the last parcel; being indeed duly labelled. Mr. Benjamin Bang, a short, fat, well-dressed, goldchained, loud-voiced man, read my label, roared with laughter, said it was Pot all over, took me and shook me roughly, but kindly, by my wooly hair, said he would see to it, and told another black fellow, called Sambo, to give me some supper.

I couldn't help giving Mike two francs, who said he would drink my health, and wished I might live till the tail of my coat knocked my brains out. I thanked him for his good wishes and pleasant company, and we parted.

The International Hotel was a strange place. It was all of iron, and rattled like a Frenchman's r's. Down stairs was the

office; where men of all nations smoked, spat, and drank, and sometimes quarrelled and fought; also the long dingy dining room, off which opened the private rooms of Mr. and Mrs. Bang. Upstairs there was a hard uncomfortable sitting room, and a number of the tiniest bedrooms I had ever seen, not much larger than Percy's cage at Sagaléa, but these were ovens instead of cages. Each had two beds, one yard apart, with a strip of carpet between them, ending in a chair and a window. At the foot of one bed was a small table with a sugar basin and a milk jug on it, which Sambo had been taught to call a wash stand. You could open the door with one hand and wet your face with the other easily.

Then the people : they were as peculiar, and for the most part as uncomfortable, as the house. They slept most of the day, and drank and shouted and blasphemed most of the night. But there were some respectable men staying there too; for the other hotel was- -well, never mind. I noticed, also, that the shabbily-dressed people were the best behaved.

Mr. Bang was the loudest, noisiest, and worst swearer of them all, being likewise the best dressed man among them. His laugh made the house rattle as if it was laughing too. The only person Mr. Bang feared was Mrs. Bang; and she was as weak and thin as he was strong and stout.

When he would be in the very height of a perfect thunderstorm of oaths, which made me tremble, Mrs. Bang would say in a quiet meek 66 way: Ben! I won't have it, it's wicked;" and straightway it passed off in a roar of laughter, and with a good-humoured, "Very well, my dear, then you shan't have it; but these niggers vex me so that I forget myself." She always had a good word for us; but she was not what I should call a lady.

Sambo was a native of the island, but spoke bad English as Iwell as I did. There were three other black fellows in the house, two from Santa Clara, but not from our part of it, and the other from some island close at hand. The place swarmed