Ralph Stock

“ Now, a mascot has no business to think; it is not expected of him. All he has to do is to sit back and look wise, and accept what comes his way with becoming dignity. That is why the career so exactly suited James Eustace Talbot.
It is not a joke. It is a serious business. Just as a warship has its bulldog, a regiment its goat, or an eminently respectable family its black cat, so a South Sea tribe has its white man, when it can get him. If he is of the right variety, he gives little trouble. ”

“ It was surprising how easily it followed him over the floor, down the bush track and on to the beach. But there was not much on it. What there was he contrived to bundle into the canoe, and with the dawn Kau was a blue smudge on the eastern horizon.
An outrigger is hard to beat "full-and-by," and the wind held as only a "trade" knows how. For a day and a night and part of yet another day Talbot sat at the steering paddle, speeding he knew not whither, provided it was away from Kau. And during that time, and for many days to follow, he was a man possessed. ”

“ There was no accounting for a mascot's wonderings.
"Well," he explained patiently, "we have some queer beliefs, 'relics of barbarism' they called them at college, but they—they survive; that is the word."
"I see," said Talbot.
"They survive," repeated the Turaga, moistening his lips as though over a choice morsel, "and one of them is that spirits sometimes come back to see that all is well with the place where their bodies lie. We like to leave them to it, so we make the place tabu. Quaint, is it not, old chap?"
"Very," said Talbot. "Then there is someone buried on Onioti?" ”

“ The canoe's prow kissed the sand, and Talbot scrambled almost nimbly ashore. He was feeling extraordinarily buoyant. If only it would last! He patted the pocket of his disreputable duck jacket to make sure the elixir was still there, and with renewed confidence followed a narrow but well-defined track leading from the beach through a tangle of tropical vegetation to the door of a native hut. An old man lay sleeping peacefully on his bamboo pillow across the threshold, a very old man by the ease with which Talbot rendered him innocuous. ”

“ He did not know that he was a mascot. All he knew, or cared to know, was that, after long and painful experience, he had discovered an Elysium where it was possible to live without money and without toil, where his mere presence gave pleasure to others and harmed no one—except himself. This last in parenthesis, for Talbot's mental and physical decline had been so gradual that he was unaware of it. He had grown a beard, but then many do in the tropics; it saves trouble. He was fatter than when he came to Kau, which only showed that the place agreed with him. ”

“ If, upon the other hand, the hurricane happens to blow your possession into the sea, you will say: "We have a white man, otherwise we should undoubtedly have been blown into the sea also." And if you are blown into the sea—well, that ends the matter, anyway. A mascot is a useful thing to have about the place.
And, as has been said, it suited Talbot. Out of a ruthless world he had come—a world with which he was utterly unsuited to do battle. ”

“ It is as pleasant to render one's neighbours envious in the South Pacific as elsewhere. For instance, if a hurricane misses your particular district by half a mile, you will say with an air of quiet superiority: "We have a white man," which will at once explain the phenomenon and sow the necessary seeds of covetousness in the breasts of your hearers. ”

“ His wants are few—a grass house, sufficient to eat and drink, and an unlimited space of time in which to do nothing. His habits are gentle, and he is, as a rule, easily domesticated. Then there is always the mysterious element of good fortune attaching to him. ”