Ralph Stock

“ Collard. “You can't take a white woman to live on Tai Levu. They die; they just fade out. Climate, you know.”
Everett tilted back his chair and whistled the same bar of revue music. Suddenly he let the chair legs fall with a thud.
“Then I'll drag him out of the beastly Islands,” he declared. “If the climate's not good enough for my wife, it's not good enough for my father. Look here, I don't mind telling you that's what I had at the back of my mind. It's wonderful what a woman can do. ”

“ Collard's head stopped with a jolt. There was a hopeless jarring of wheels. Then to his intense relief it resumed its functions.
“An engineer told me that there is nothing to be done in Tai Levu,” he ended with an effort.
“That's funny,” said Everett, “engineering's what I fancy. But you can't tell me that a young man with a sensible—with the best wife in the world—can't be of use to his father. ”

“ Mr. Collard turned thoughtfully in the direction of the hotel. It made no difference. There were only two steamship lines to the Islands, and he hunted their offices until he found what he sought on the passenger list—Mrs. and Miss Talbot, and Mr. Daniel Everett sailing on the Levuka.
“I want two steerage cabins—” Mr. Collard had begun when the clerk spoke, still staring indifferently out of the office window, as he had stared from the beginning. ”

“ Collard.
“Perhaps,” mused Everett, and sat silent for a space. “I say,” he said suddenly, “how do I get from here to Pago Pago?”
A WEEK later Dan of the Beach passed through his compound gate, up the verandah steps and dropped into his favortie wicker chair. Before him stretched the palms, the curve of coral sand, and the blue Pacific. A minah bird fluttered down from a screw pine and strutted about the compound. The boom of the surf on the barrier reef chanted a benediction.
“Whew,” sighed Dan of the Beach, and smiled.
The Islands take hold of a man. ”

“ Mr. Collard contemplated the members indicated. They looked capable of all their owner claimed for them.
“That's what it is,” Everett rambled on enthusiastically. “He's rusticated in those cursed Islands. Men do get like that I believe. He'll have to be got out of them.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Collard.
As he was going towards the door, Everett noticed the tanoa.
“What's this?” he demanded with the bluntness of youth.
“Kava,” said Mr. Collard. ”

“ A man, yes, but he was not a man. He was a mummy in its case.
A tall young man in white flannels came forward in answer to the girl's call of “Dan!” Mr. Collard had started visibly, then glanced about him to discover whether anyone had noticed it
Then, his surroundings. They had become part of Dan of the Beach, but how would they strike a stranger? The bungalow needed painting badly. The compound was in a disgraceful state, and that was all, all except the ever-tidy coral beach, the palms a the Pacific ocean. ”

“ I'm—I'm not very strong. Do what you think best with my balance; what I want now is a steerage ticket for Sydney by the next boat and under the name of Collard—yes, I said steerage and under the name of Collard.” A fit of peevishness, the same that had caused him to throw a boot at the house-boy on more than one occasion had seized on Dan of the Beach. “Get me a cabin—two cabins, one to eat in and the other to sleep in, but steerage, mind, and under the name of Collard.” ”

“ The amount you left when you started out on that hair-brained world tour of yours is far too much. It has mounted up absurdly through a few judicious investments, and now brings in ample for any normal young man.... But he is not the kind to be happy doing nothing in particular. ”

“ There were people eating, other people than the ordinary planter in white ducks. These other people wore evening dress; they looked very remarkable and yet strangely familiar as they toyed with—boiled mutton and—yes, caper sauce. The articles of diet came to Dan's mind mechanically, though he had not tasted either for years. ”

“ Kava is wonderfully reviving.
But no one on Tai Levu would have dreamed of saying such things to Dan Everett. The people of the Islands are not in the habit of making suggestions until they are asked for—it is too much effort. Neither do they ask awkward questions, and herein lies one of their chief charms. To them Dan Everett was “Dan of the Beach,” one of the countless old settlers who had drifted from the whirlpool of the outside world into the still back-waters of the Islands ”

“ He wants to know if you are alive or dead, well or ill, prosperous or poor, He has written you more than once and received no answer. It is too late to write now; he is going to see for himself....
He shuffled along the beach toward the settlement
The letter was from a brother, a successful business man in a provincial town on the other side of the world, and the young man referred to was Dan's son.
Dan of the Beach walked unsteadily into the bungalow—kava has a disastrous effect on the legs in time—and helped himself to two brimming half cocoanut shells from the tanoa. ”

“ Everett's seamless brow contracted into a frown. “Work.”
“But what if there isn't any? Dan Everett doesn't work for a living.”
“Oh, I'll find something—planting, anything—you don't seem to realize, Mr. Collard, he's my father.”
“Perhaps I don't,” sighed the old man. “Perhaps I don't. But I don't see what you could do on Tai Levu all the same. An engineer—”
THE mechanism inside Mr. ”