“For months he has lived at Lovaina’s, Fanny’s, and even on the Chinese.  He has borrowed thousands of francs, and spent it for drink and often for champagne.  He did old Lovaina up for money as well as board.  She believes in him yet, and calls him Lord Innes or Sir Gordon, but says she has no more to risk.  He promised to build her a big hotel where the Annexe is.  He’s got many of the Tahitian girls and their mothers mad over his style and his prospects.  Finally, he was warned by me to leave the island, and the result was his tryin’ to borrow the lethal weapon, the poem and the letter.  The Baron Airedale document he showed me when he first landed, to try to get my indorsement.  There’s no Burke in the South Seas, and there probably is no such bloomin’ baron.  Sounds more like a dog.”  The consul chuckled.

“Those lairds are as plentiful as brands of Scotch whisky made in England,” Stevens said derisively.  “What will you do to uphold the honor of the British crown?  Is the Scotch bastard to go on with his fairy-tale and do brown the colonials?”

“I am going to have the diplomat repair the roads of Tahiti for two months, and then ship him third-class to New Zealand, where he has to go to carry out his blasted fate,” the consul declared, and ordered all glasses filled.

We discussed the sudden and abnormal appearance of boot-blacks.  One had set up an ornate stand on the rue de Rivoli.  He was an American, Tom Wilkins, and the first ever known to practise his profession in the South Seas.  He had come like a non-periodic comet, and suddenly flashed his brass-tagged platform and arm-chair upon the gaping natives.  Most of them being barefooted, one would have thought his customers not many; but the novelty of a white man doing anything for them was irresistible to all who had shoes.  He did not lower himself in their estimation.  It is noteworthy that the Tahitian does not distinguish between what we call menial labor and other work.  Nor did we until recently.  The kings and nobles of Europe were actually served by the lords of the bedchamber and the maids in waiting.  The American boot-black was really a boot-white, as all wore white canvas shoes except preachers and sailors.

The boot-white called out, “Shine!” and the word, unpronounceable by the native, entered a himene as tina.  Within a week he had his Tahitian consort doing the shining most of the time while he loafed in the Paris saloon.  He lived at the Annexe, and told me that he was not really a boot-cleaner, but was going around the world on a wager of twenty thousand dollars, “without a cent.”  He, too, had a credulous circle, who paid him often five francs for a shine to help him win his bet by arriving at the New York City Hall on a fixed date with a certain sum of money earned by his hands.  He raised the American flag over his stand, and referred to Uncle Sam as if he were a blood relation to whom he could appeal for anything at any time.