suppressed eagerness, their eyes flashed avariciously.

"I want a house," Mapuhi went on. "It must have a roof of galvanized
iron and an octagon-drop-clock. It must be six fathoms long with a
porch all around. A big room must be in the centre, with a round table
in the middle of it and the octagon-drop-clock on the wall. There must
be four bedrooms, two on each side of the big room, and in each
bedroom must be an iron bed, two chairs, and a washstand. And back of
the house must be a kitchen, a good kitchen, with pots and pans and a
stove. And you must build the house on my island, which is Fakarava."

"Is that all?" Raoul asked incredulously.

"There must be a sewing machine," spoke up Tefara, Mapuhi's wife.

"Not forgetting the octagon-drop-clock," added Nauri, Mapuhi's mother.

"Yes, that is all," said Mapuhi.

Young Raoul laughed. He laughed long and heartily. But while he
laughed he secretly performed problems in mental arithmetic. He had
never built a house in his life, and his notions concerning house
building were hazy. While he laughed, he calculated the cost of the
voyage to Tahiti for materials, of the materials themselves, of the
voyage back again to Fakarava, and the cost of landing the materials
and of building the house. It would come to four thousand French
dollars, allowing a margin for safety--four thousand French dollars
were equivalent to twenty thousand francs. It was impossible. How was
he to know the value of such a pearl? Twenty thousand francs was a lot
of money--and of his mother's money at that.