The inspecteurs and others of the suite had smiles and quips for humbler girls than princesses.  I saw one of the awesome whiskerandos from Paris, haughty and secretive toward the French, lighting the cigarette of a blanchisseuse at the Pool of Psyche, his arm about her, and his black bristles nearer than necessary to her ripe mouth.  A merchant dining away from home slapped caressingly the hips of the girls who waited upon him, nor concealed his gestures.  Hypocrisy had lost her shield in Tahiti, because, except among a few aged persons, and the pastors, she was not a virtue, as in America and England, but a hateful vice.

Back again in the Palais, cooled and made receptive to music by the joyous quarter of an hour in the buffet, we heard Mme. Gautier sing “Le Cid,” by Massenet, and the Princess Tekau accompany her effectively on the piano.  A solo de piston, a violin, a flute, all played by Tahitians, entertained us, and then came the fun.  M. X——­ was down for a monologue.  Who could it be?  He bounced on the stage in a Prince-Albert coat and a Derby hat, rollicking, truculent, plainly exhilarated.  Why, it was M. Lontane in disguise, the second in command of the police, the hero of the battle of the limes, the coal, and the potatoes.  He gave a side-splitting burlesque of the conflict.  He acted the drunken stoker, the man who would write to “The Times” when M. Lontane placed his pistol at his stomach, and he made us see the fruit and coal flying.  It was all good natured, and his dialogue (monologue) amusing.  We saw how we Anglo-Saxons appeared to the French, and learned how the hoarse growl of the British sailor sounded.

The governor was delighted, the inspecteurs also.  The officials took their cue, the entire audience laughed, and the galleries of children, not understanding at all, but convulsed at the antics of the head policeman, yelled encore.  The British consul grinned, and the governor turned and winked at him.  The entente cordiale was cemented again.  The second in command, who provoked the sundering of the tie, had reunited it by his comicality.  Ire dissolved in glee.

A play followed, in which several of the players were in the audience, and in which my barber, M. Bontet, shone, and moving-pictures followed.  The babies were long asleep, and we yawning when we were dismissed at half past twelve.

Bemis, the cocoanut-buyer, sat through the entr’acte, not accompanying me to the buffet.  He received a shock during the handing out of the premiums and was silent afterward.  Bemis was a striking man, because the very regular features of his young face were set off by a mass of white hair.  He was placid, without a disturbing intellect, and interested solely in the price and condition of fresh cocoanuts for shipment.  I had seen him start when a little girl of distinctive expression was called to the stage to receive her book.  She sat with her mother and putative father, and their other children.  When I first saw her, I pulled his arm.