Page:The Surakarta (1913).djvu/125

Rh the most gorgeously dressed luncheon parties had chosen, or had been placed, at the most prominent tables, as he had seen in the Polynesian islands the best places appropriated by those who wore the greatest number of beads and pieces of punched tin. It appeared to him, too, that, exactly as he had sometimes seen a savage gain fame and at the same time ruin himself in setting out a single meal, so these persons gained social distinction directly in the ratio of the amount they spent upon food. Immersed in the contemplation of these social facts—which he regarded with the same dispassionate interest he formerly had shown in observing the customs of the head-hunters of Borneo—Max seemed wholly oblivious that just now by his statement to Baraka he probably had done great injury to his friend Hereford.