“Fellow-exiles and natives bujus Teetee.  We are gathered together this Fourth of July—­”

Cries of “Altai” “Ce n’est-pas vrai!” “Shove in your high!  It’s New Year!”

“—­to cel’brate the annivers’ry of the death of that great man—­”

Yells of “Sit down!” “Olalala!” “Aita maitai!” and the venerable orator took his seat.  He was once a governor of a territory under President Harrison, and now lived off his pension, shaky, sans teeth, sans hair, but never sans speech.

The Englishmen and Americans clattered glasses and said “Happy New Year!” and the Tahitians:  “Rupe-rupe tatou iti!  I teienei matahiti api!” “Hurrah for all of us!  Good cheer for the New Year!”

Monsieur Lontane, second in command of the police, arrived just in time to drink the bonne annee.  He executed a pas seul.  He mimicked a great one of France.  He drank champagne from a bottle, a clear four inches between its neck and his, and not a drop spilled.

Lovaina sat on her bench in the porch and marked down the debits: 

Fat face............3 Roederer.......... 
New Doctor..........5 champag........... 
Hair on nose........2 champ............. 
Willi...............4 pol..............

The electric lights went out.  There was a dreadful flutter among the girls.  Some one went to the piano and began to play, “Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot,” and the Americans and English sang, the French humming the air.  The wine flattened in the glasses and open bottles, but no one cared.  They gathered in the garden, where the perfume of the tiare scented the night, and the stars were a million lamps sublime in the sky.  Song followed song, English and French, and when the lazy current pulsated again, the ball was over.

We walked to the beach, Nance and I.

“It’s hell how this place gets hold of you,” said Nance, who had shot pythons in Paraguay and had a yacht in Los Angeles harbor.  “I dunno, it must be the cocoanuts or the breadfruit.”

Walking back alone through a by-path, I saw the old folks sitting on their verandas and the younger at dalliance in the many groves.  Voices of girls called me: 

“Haere me ne!” “Come to us!” “Hoere mai u nei ite po ia u nei!”

The Himene tatou Arearea of our Moorea expedition came from many windows, the accordions sweet and low, and the subdued chant in sympathy with the mellow hour.  “The soft lasceevious stars leered from these velvet skies.”

Lovaina had gone to bed, but, with the lights on again, patrons of the prize-fight had dropped in.  The Christchurch Kid had beaten Teaea, a native, the match being a preliminary clearing of the ground before the signal encounter with the bridegroom.

The glass doors of the salle-a-manger were broken in a playful scuffle between the whiskered doctor of the hospital, and Afa, the majordomo of the Tiare.  The medical man ordered five bottles of champagne, and, putting them in his immense pockets, returned to his table and opened them all at once.  He had them spouting about him while their fizz lasted, and then drank most of their contents.  He then threw all the crockery of his table to the roadway, and Afa wrestled him into a better state, during which process the doors were smashed.  When the bombilation became too fearful, Lovaina called out from her bed: