ROMANCE WHILE YOU WAIT.

My friend and I occupied facing seats in a railway-carriage on a
tedious journey. Having nothing to read and not much to say, I gazed
through the windows at the sodden English winter landscape, while
my friend's eyes were fixed on the opposite wall of the compartment,
above my head.

"What a country!" I exclaimed at last. "Good heavens, what a country,
to spend one's life in!"

"Yes," he said, withdrawing his eyes from the space above my head.
"And why do we stay in it when there are such glorious paradises to go
to? Hawaii now. If you really want divine laziness--sun and warmth and
the absence of all fretful ambition--you should go to the South Seas.
You can't get it anywhere else. I remember when I was in Hawaii--"

"Hawaii!" I interrupted. "You never told me you had been to Hawaii."

"I don't tell everything," he replied. "But the happiest hours of
my existence were spent in a little village two or three miles
from Honolulu, on the coast, where we used to go now and then for
a day's fun. It was called--let me get it right--it was called
Tormo Tonitui--and there were pleasure-gardens there and the most
fascinating girls." His eyes took on a far-away wistfulness.

"Yes, yes?" I said.

"Fascinating brown girls," he said, "who played that banjo-mandolin
thing they all play, and sang mournful luxurious songs, and danced