like a whale-boat, a big native roof on the top of it, windows without sashes and doorways without doors.  I stuck my head into one of the windows, and the sight was so new to me — for things went quite different in the islands I was acquainted with — that I stayed and looked on.  The congregation sat on the floor on mats, the women on one side, the men on the other, all rigged out to kill — the women with dresses and trade hats, the men in white jackets and shirts.  The hymn was over; the pastor, a big buck Kanaka, was in the pulpit, preaching for his life; and by the way he wagged his hand, and worked his voice, and made his points, and seemed to argue with the folk, I made out he was a gun at the business.  Well, he looked up suddenly and caught my eye, and I give you my word he staggered in the pulpit; his eyes bulged out of his head, his hand rose and pointed at me like as if against his will, and the sermon stopped right there.

It isn’t a fine thing to say for yourself, but I ran away; and if the same kind of a shock was given me, I should run away again tomorrow.  To see that palavering Kanaka struck all of a heap at the mere sight of me gave me a feeling as if the bottom had dropped out of the world.  I went right home, and stayed there, and said nothing.  You might think I would tell Uma, but that was against my system.  You might have thought I would have gone over and consulted Case; but the truth was I was ashamed to speak of such a thing, I thought everyone would blurt out laughing in my face.  So I held my tongue, and thought all the more; and the more I thought, the less I liked the business.

By Monday night I got it clearly in my head I must be tabooed.  A new store to stand open two days in a village and not a man or woman come to see the trade was past believing.

“Uma,” said I, “I think I’m tabooed.”

“I think so,” said she.

I thought awhile whether I should ask her more, but it’s a bad idea to set natives up with any notion of consulting them, so I went to Case.  It was dark, and he was sitting alone, as he did mostly, smoking on the stairs.

“Case,” said I, “here’s a queer thing.  I’m tabooed.”

“O, fudge!” says he; “’tain’t the practice in these islands.”

“That may be, or it mayn’t,” said I.  “It’s the practice where I was before.  You can bet I know what it’s like; and I tell it you for a fact, I’m tabooed.”

“Well,” said he, “what have you been doing?”

“That’s what I want to find out,” said I.

“O, you can’t be,” said he; “it ain’t possible.  However, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.  Just to put your mind at rest, I’ll go round and find out for sure.  Just you waltz in and talk to Papa.”

“Thank you,” I said, “I’d rather stay right out here on the verandah.  Your house is so close.”

“I’ll call Papa out here, then,” says he.

“My dear fellow,” I says, “I wish you wouldn’t.  The fact is, I don’t take to Mr. Randall.”