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  doing so well with the pearls? A temporary manager of theirs proved to be an old acquaintance of mine—a harum-scarum sort of chap, undoubtedly well-born, unquestionably badly behaved, handsome, vicious, kind-hearted when the notion took him, at other times as rough as a Liverpool navvy. I always suspected his escutcheon of bearing the baton sinister.

"Stewart was his name. I had known him in the Marquesas, where he had been the agent of an Australian firm. He asked me to his house, and I was glad to accept, for I liked the scamp, in spite of his wickedness, and, be sides, I was in no condition to be left to the tender mercies of native inn-keepers. "Stewart used to swear like a trooper when one of my chills would shake the whole of the little basket-house and disturb his siesta; then up he would get, clad only in the lower half of his pajamas, and rough the servants about and work over me as if he loved me. Ach! how it seems like yesterday that I have seen [ 160 ]