words. The girl was tall, of graceful build, and possessed of a quiet
beauty that had a most peculiar effect upon me. Only that afternoon, as
I lay in the shadow of the pile of pearl shell on Levuka wharf, I had
thought of crossing to Auckland and shipping up to 'Frisco so that I
could hear good women laugh and talk as I had heard them in my dreams
during the years I had spent around the Islands, and now the woman of my
dreams was in front of me. But I was afraid of her. When she came toward
me I thought of the years I had wasted down in that lonely quarter where
ambition is strangled by lassitude bred in tropical sunshine, and the
ghost of the man I might have been banged me fair between the two eyes.

"My daughter, Miss Edith Herndon," squeaked the Professor, and when I
put out my big hand to take her little one I thought I'd fall down on
the deck on account of the Niagara of blood that seemed to rush to my
brain.

It's funny how all the little imperfections in your dress and manner
rise up suddenly and bang you hard on the bump of observation when you
find yourself in front of some one whose good opinion you want to earn.
I felt it so the moment I stood before the girl in the cream serge suit.
My drill outfit, that I had thought rather clean when I brushed the
shell grit from it after my sleep on the wharf, looked as black as the
devil's tail when she appeared. My hands appeared to be several degrees
larger than the prize hams that come out of Kansas, and my tongue, as if
it recognized the stupidity of the remarks I attempted to make, started
to play fool stunts as if it wanted to go down my throat and choke me to
death.

The girl guessed the sort of predicament I was in at that moment. God
only knows how many months had passed since I had spoken to a woman like