Ralph Stock

“ They were solar topees that rapidly evolved themselves into men—white men. One was short and plump and pink, the other tall and dark. Felisi had seen them both before, and knew one to be a well-known Levuka solicitor. The other she had seen coming down the gangway of the steamer the previous day. She remembered him partly because of his vague resemblance to Jimmie, and partly because he had brushed her aside when she offered the imitation pink coral. ”

“ He knows nothing of the native, and cares less, and he carries his troubles with him out of the world into the Islands, which results in his having a careworn appearance and always being in a hurry.
Then there is the super white man—he of speckless white flannel and white felt hat—but Felisi knew little of him, except that on the wharf he and his women folk were the easiest prey to imitation pink coral.
Jimmie belonged to the first of this category, and for this reason Felisi understood and loved the old man, as she understood and loved the rainbow-tinted fish in a rock pool. ”

“ There was the shadowgraph of a hand going out and filling a glass very carefully from a bottle and a syphon.
"Call that a drink?"
"We're going to fight it out, Jim, up here alone. A little less each time; you won't notice it."
"What's all this?"
"Pyjamas. Don't they feel nice and cool and—and clean? Lie still, Jim; you're not strong yet, you know." ”

“ The Complete Beachcomber THE imitation pink coral factory was situated high up on a cliff about a mile along the coast from Levuka.
Those who associate the word "factory" with a mental picture of towering chimneys belching black smoke, the hum of machinery, and streams of pale-faced men and women hurrying to work with papier mâché dispatch cases of lunch in their hands, will be grievously disappointed, because in this particular instance the factory belonged to Felisi of Luana, and, like its inventor, the process of production was as simple as it was effective. ”

“ Felisi felt a certain sense of proprietorship in Jimmie's poem. Had she not helped to supply a word—a very vital word? She determined to see it sold. The basket of coral was left with the nagging aunt, and Felisi followed Jimmie into Parsons's store. She wondered, as she threaded her way through the stacks of kerosene, tins, rope, leaf tobacco, and coloured shirts, why he had come to Parsons's when the poem distinctly said "Boulton's," but it was soon made apparent. ”

“ Listen to the rain! Watlington!" Jimmie's head sank down on to his arms. "Parsons's—zephyr—vests!" he muttered drowsily. "Cool—pool—rule——" He was asleep.
He was really still asleep when Felisi led him to his bed in the corner and left him with the mosquito curtain well tucked in under the mats. She fitted together the puzzle as she went down the red earth track leading to her aunt's grass house on the outskirts of Levuka, and she found it entertaining. The way of the white man had always interested her. ”

“ Boulton always pays in advance. One must live, you know," added Jimmie, with quiet dignity.
Missi Parsonie disappeared behind a stack of kerosene cases, and to Felisi it was a curious thing that, while he was gone, Jimmie helped himself to nothing, not even a biscuit. ”

“ Felisi was far from pleased at the change of employment. For an ardent student of the white man and his ways, the tourists on the wharf, not to mention a nagging aunt at home, offered a poor substitute for the freedom of movement and observation in a white household. To be sure, there was Jimmie. ”

“ Pure! Rotten!" Jimmie squirmed in the grass and cast appealing eyes to heaven.
"Big," suggested Felisi.
Jimmy became suddenly still, and frowned, then smiled.
"Tall," he said, lingering over the word as if it pleased him.
"Thy tall green hills and nodding palms."
"You did that, Felisi," he told her, as though acquainting her of a self-accomplished miracle. "And now we come to the point—a fall from Pegasus, I admit, but a necessary fall." The hand was again upraised.
"Yet stop—— (And here is where the attention is at once arrested. Parsons can't help seeing that)
"Yet stop! ”