it was three storeys high, with great chambers and broad balconies on each.  The windows were of glass, so excellent that it was as clear as water and as bright as day.  All manner of furniture adorned the chambers.  Pictures hung upon the wall in golden frames:  pictures of ships, and men fighting, and of the most beautiful women, and of singular places; nowhere in the world are there pictures of so bright a colour as those Keawe found hanging in his house.  As for the knick-knacks, they were extraordinary fine; chiming clocks and musical boxes, little men with nodding heads, books filled with pictures, weapons of price from all quarters of the world, and the most elegant puzzles to entertain the leisure of a solitary man.  And as no one would care to live in such chambers, only to walk through and view them, the balconies were made so broad that a whole town might have lived upon them in delight; and Keawe knew not which to prefer, whether the back porch, where you got the land breeze, and looked upon the orchards and the flowers, or the front balcony, where you could drink the wind of the sea, and look down the steep wall of the mountain and see the Hall going by once a week or so between Hookena and the hills of Pele, or the schooners plying up the coast for wood and ava and bananas.

When they had viewed all, Keawe and Lopaka sat on the porch.

“Well,” asked Lopaka, “is it all as you designed?”

“Words cannot utter it,” said Keawe.  “It is better than I dreamed, and I am sick with satisfaction.”

“There is but one thing to consider,” said Lopaka; “all this may be quite natural, and the bottle imp have nothing whatever to say to it.  If I were to buy the bottle, and got no schooner after all, I should have put my hand in the fire for nothing.  I gave you my word, I know; but yet I think you would not grudge me one more proof.”

“I have sworn I would take no more favours,” said Keawe.  “I have gone already deep enough.”

“This is no favour I am thinking of,” replied Lopaka.  “It is only to see the imp himself.  There is nothing to be gained by that, and so nothing to be ashamed of; and yet, if I once saw him, I should be sure of the whole matter.  So indulge me so far, and let me see the imp; and, after that, here is the money in my hand, and I will buy it.”

“There is only one thing I am afraid of,” said Keawe.  “The imp may be very ugly to view; and if you once set eyes upon him you might be very undesirous of the bottle.”

“I am a man of my word,” said Lopaka.  “And here is the money betwixt us.”

“Very well,” replied Keawe.  “I have a curiosity myself.  So come, let us have one look at you, Mr. Imp.”

Now as soon as that was said, the imp looked out of the bottle, and in again, swift as a lizard; and there sat Keawe and Lopaka turned to stone.  The night had quite come, before either found a thought to say or voice to say it with; and then Lopaka pushed the money over and took the bottle.