under the lanterns at night. And the bathing! There's no bathing here
at all. There you can stay in the sea air day if you like. It's like
bathing in champagne. Sun and surf and sands--there's nothing like
it." He sighed rapturously.

"Well, I can't help saying again," I interrupted, "that it's a most
extraordinary thing that, after knowing you all these years, you
have never told me a word about Honolulu or the South Seas or this
wonderful pleasure-garden place called--what was the name of it?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Morto Notitui," he then replied.

"I don't think that's how you had it before," I said; "surely it was
Tormo Tonitui?"

"Perhaps it was," he said. "I forget. Those Hawaiian names are very
much alike and all rather confusing. But you really ought to go out
there. Why don't you cut everything for a year and get some sunshine
into your system? You're fossilising here. We all are. Let's be
gamblers and chance it."

"I wish I could," I said. "Tell me some more about your life there."

"It was wonderful," he went on--wonderful. I'm not surprised that
STEVENSON found it a paradise."

"By the way," I asked, "did you hear anything of STEVENSON?"

"Oh, yes, lots. I met several men who had known him--Tusitala he
was called there, you know--and several natives. There was one