drink. In him the European blood, of the best in the British Isles,
arrested the abandon of the aborigine, and created a hesitant blend
of dignity and awkwardness. He was a striking-looking man, very tall,
slender, about fifty years old, swarthy, with hair as black as night,
and eyebrows like small mustaches, the eyes themselves in caverns,
usually dull and dour, but when he talked, spots of light. I thought
of that Master of Ballantrae of Stevenson's, though for all I remember
he was blond. Yet the characters of the two blended in my mind, and I
tried to match them the more I saw of him. He was born here, and after
an education abroad and a sowing of wild oats over years of life in
Europe, had lived here the last twenty-five years. He was in trade,
like almost every one here, but I saw no business instincts or habits
about him. One found him most of the time at the Cercle Bougainville,
drinking sauterne and siphon water, shaking for the drinks, or playing
écarté for five francs a game.

Below the salt sat his son and his nephew, men of twenty-five years,
but sons of Tahitian mothers, and without the culture or European
education of their fathers. With them two chauffeurs were seated. One
of these, an American, the driver for Polonsky, had tarried here on
a trip about the world, and was persuaded to take employment with
Polonsky. The other was a half-caste, a handsome man of fifty, whose
employer treated him like a friend.

Breakfast lasted two hours for us. For the band it kept on until
dinner, for they did not leave the table from noon, when we sat down,
until dark. When they did not eat, they drank. Occasionally one of
us slipped down and took his place with them. I sat with them half
an hour, while they honored me with "Johnny Burrown," "The Good,
Old Summertime," and "Everybody Doin' It."