writing sonnets. That merely tells the sense of the himene, but
cannot convey the joy or sorrow of it. Well, let's sink dull care
fifty fathoms deep! Look at those band-boys! So long as they have
plenty of rum or beer or wine and their instruments, they care little
for food. Watch them. Now they are dry and inactive. Wait till the
alcohol wets them, They will touch the sky."

Llewellyn's deep-set eyes under the beetling brows were lighting with
new fires.

His idea of inactivity and drought was sublimated, for the musicians
were never still a moment. They played mostly syncopated airs of the
United States, popular at the time. All primitive people, or those
less advanced in civilization or education, prefer the rag-time
variants of the American negro or his imitators, to so-called good
or classical music. It is like simple language, easily understood,
and makes a direct appeal to their ears and their passions. It is the
slang or argot of music, hot off the griddle for the average man's
taste, without complexities or stir to musing and melancholy.

The musicians had drunk much wine and rum, and now wanted only
beer. That was the order of their carouse. Beer was expensive at two
francs a bottle, and so a conscientious native had been delegated to
give it out slowly. He had the barrel containing the quartbottles
between his legs while he sat at the table, and each was doled out
only after earnest supplications and much music.

"Horoa mai te pia!" "More beer!" they implored.

"Himene" said the inexorable master of the brew.