But the cruel war would not down.  There was not a good feeling between the English and French in Tahiti.  A slight opposition cropped out often in criticism expressed to Americans or to Tahitians, or to each other’s own people.  New Zealand governs the Cook group, of which Raratonga is the principal island.  Comparisons of sanitation, order, neatness, and businesslike management of these islands, with the happy-go-lucky administration of the Society, Paumotus, Marquesas, and Austral archipelagoes, owned by the French, were frequent by the English.  The French shrugged their shoulders.

“The Tahitians are happy, and we send millions of francs to aid France,” they said.  “The English talk always of neatness and golf links and cricket-grounds.  Eh bien!  There are other and better things.  And as for drink, oh, la, la!  Our sour wines could not fight one round of the English boxe with whisky and gin and that awful ale.”

The French residents protested at the missiles of the crew and the laissez-faire of the Noa-Noa officers, and the British consul received a letter from the governor in which the affair of the riot was revived in an absurd manner.

One might understand M. Lontane, second in command of the police forces,—­six men and himself,—­magnifying the row between the tipsy stokers and his battalions, but to have the governor, who was a first-rate hand at bridge, and even knew the difference between a straight and a flush, putting down in black and white, sealed with the seal of the Republique Francaise, and signed with his own hand, that “France had been insulted by the actions of the savages of the Noa-Noa,” was worthy only of the knight of La Mancha.

So thought the consul, but he was a diplomat, his adroitness gained not only in the consular ranks, but also in Persia as a secretary of legation, and in many a fever-stricken and robber-ridden port of the Near and Far East.  He pinned upon his most obstreperous uniform the medal won by merit, straddled a dangling sword, helmeted his head, and with an interpreter, that the interview might lack nothing of formality, called upon the governor at his palace.

He told him that the letter of complaint had roused his wonderment, for, said his British Majesty’s representative, “There can be no serious result, diplomatically or locally, of this Donnybrook Fair incident.  In a hundred ports of the world where war-ships and merchant ships go, their crews for scores of years have fought with the police.  Besides, I am informed that Monsieur Lontane put a revolver against the stomach of one of the stokers, and that provoked the nastiness.  Until then it had been uncouth mirth caused by the vile liquor sold by the saloons licensed by the Government, and against the Papeete regulations that no more intoxicants shall be sold to a man already drunk.  But when this British citizen, scum of Sydney or Glasgow as he might be, saw the deadly weapon, he felt aggrieved.  This revolver practice is all too common on the part of Monsieur Lontane.  Six such complaints I have had in as many months.  As to that part of your letter that the crew of the Noa-Noa not be allowed to land here on its return to Papeete, I agree with you, but it will be for you to enforce this prohibition.”