H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ THE world north of the Spanish parallels is more sane and less extravagant than the world south of them, less wonderful, too, if indeed one thing can be less wonderful than another in this most extraordinary world. ”

“ Plant one of them things in any place where there are niggers enough to make a fight and let it grow and you'll see the fun. Murder and slaughter let loose. Lomax grew them or got them, anyhow, and gave me his word for it.'
"Now Fergus was a hard-shell Scotsman, but he had his superstitions, and had taken such a down on Lomax that he was pushed into dislike enough for the things to wish them overboard. But dad laughed at him and stuck them in the locker, and they tramped the anchor out of the mud and put out, and the last thing they saw was Lomax on the beach witn a gin bottle in his hand. ”

“ There were reefs, but big breaks showed with the blue water running in, and the Penguin nosed her way through without a scratch and dropped the hook in twelve-fathom water before as pretty a beach as you'd wish to see, with the waterfall cascading down to it and making a trough at the foot of the cliff that stood at the north end.
"The north end of that island is all high; southward it runs pretty flat and thickly wooded. But you can see the place for yourself any time you wish to go there; Eromaya is its name and it does a big trade now in copra, but in those days it was wild. ”

“ He'd been running a cargo from New Zealand to Brisbane when he heard of business to be done in the Arafara Sea, and he clapped on and came through Torres Straits in the South-East Monsoon when Torres is clear of fog.
"Now you go through Torres and it's like shutting a door on the Pacific. You're inside a bit of old Asia and you hit all sorts of funny places and people and flowers and trees and fruit that's different from anywhere else.
"Dad had along with him a young chap by name of Fergus. Fergus died only five years ago. ”

“ There was a will at the lawyers' in 'Frisco leaving the Penguin and all its property to me, with Fergus in charge as a sort of guardian and boss of the show till I was twenty-one, which wouldn't be for some years yet, and Fergus he stuck to his job treating me as man to man with no flapdoodle like elders serve out to youngsters, and we got knit together into sort of working partners and we didn't let the show down. We made money. ”

“ Louis Becke, the best gentleman that ever trod a plank, was in the land of the living, and Bishop Selwyn was showing the kanakas that white men weren't all of the same stamp as a few holy horrors notwithstandin' whom the Pacific was better in those days than 'tis now. ”

“ The deck cargo alone would have paid for the trip, and leaving that aside the old Penguin was over-loaded.
"Meantime the monsoon had changed and Torres had let down a curtain of fog, fog and dirty weather, almost sure death to face; but dad never bothered about death, he got through.
"He could smell reefs.
"In the middle of the smother Fergus remembered those pips. Three Jonahs he reckoned them, but the old man only laughed, saying there were no niggers on board, so they needn't bother. ”

“ Seems to me the old dad planted the wrong stuff, for if this isn't peace and prosperity, then there aren't no white bears in Alaska. Look at the church.'
"'Something seems to have fetched loose,' said Fergus. 'I reckon missionaries have been tangling things up. Anyhow, we'll see.'
Illustration: "'He'd done this business and the casks were all ready to be towed off when out of the trees without word or warning came a flight of arrows. Most fell short, but one of them hit Jackson in the arm.'"
"We dropped the hook and came ashore. ”

“ The white man's name was Leeson. He was a trader, been there four years, said the place was civilised when he came and Adams the missionary visited every three months or so and there was a native pastor. Nice chap Leeson was, nothing against him but a squint which he couldn't help, being a natural infirmity. ”

“ When Juan—what's his name?—the President of one of them South American States, was howlin' for guns way back in the seventies to fight his neighbours with, dad took him the guns, Veterli rifles, worth their weight in Mexican dollars; took them out of 'Frisco harbour, contraband of war, right under the noses of the Customs and never paid a penny graft money. Dad was dead against bribery and corruption when he had to pay the bribes. ”

“ He said the cockroaches used to come on deck to cool themselves at sun-up and before they could get back below they'd be stuck by the hot pitch between the deck planking; he said they got so cute after a while that they only made their excursions fore and aft so's to be able to come back along the planks without crossing the pitch lines—which was a lie.
"I've always held to the truth; once a chap gets to embroiderin' on the truth, there's no knowing where his fancy-work will take him to ”