it is typical of a prevailing infirmity among Germans in Samoa.  Touchy themselves, they read all history in the light of personal affronts and tiffs; and I find this weakness indicated by the big thumb of Bismarck, when he places “sensitiveness to small disrespects—­Empfindlichkeit ueber Mangel an Respect,” among the causes of the wild career of Knappe.  Whatever the cause, at least, the natives had no sooner taken arms than Leary appeared with violence upon that side.  As early as the 3rd, he had sent an obscure but menacing despatch to Brandeis.  On the 6th, he fell on Fritze in the matter of the Manono bombardment.  “The revolutionists,” he wrote, “had an armed force in the field within a few miles of this harbour, when the vessels under your command transported the Tamasese troops to a neighbouring island with the avowed intention of making war on the isolated homes of the women and children of the enemy.  Being the only other representative of a naval power now present in this harbour, for the sake of humanity I hereby respectfully and solemnly protest in the name of the United States of America and of the civilised world in general against the use of a national war-vessel for such services as were yesterday rendered by the German corvette Adler.”  Fritze’s reply, to the effect that he is under the orders of the consul and has no right of choice, reads even humble; perhaps he was not himself vain of the exploit, perhaps not prepared to see it thus described in words.  From that moment Leary was in the front of the row.  His name is diagnostic, but it was not required; on every step of his subsequent action in Samoa Irishman is writ large; over all his doings a malign spirit of humour presided.  No malice was too small for him, if it were only funny.  When night signals were made from Mulinuu, he would sit on his own poop and confound them with gratuitous rockets.  He was at the pains to write a letter and address it to “the High Chief Tamasese”—­a device as old at least as the wars of Robert Bruce—­in order to bother the officials of the German post-office, in whose hands he persisted in leaving it, although the address was death to them and the distribution of letters in Samoa formed no part of their profession.  His great masterwork of pleasantry, the Scanlon affair, must be narrated in its place.  And he was no less bold than comical.  The Adams was not supposed to be a match for the Adler; there was no glory to be gained in beating her; and yet I have heard naval officers maintain she might have proved a dangerous antagonist in narrow waters and at short range.  Doubtless Leary thought so.  He was continually daring Fritze to come on; and already, in a despatch of the 9th, I find Becker complaining of his language in the hearing of German officials, and how he had declared that, on the Adler again interfering, he would interfere himself, “if he went to the bottom for it—­und wenn sein Schiff dabei zu Grunde ginge.”