_Mrs. MacLaggan's "Billy"_


When Tom Denison was quite a young man he was earning a not too
dishonest sort of a living as supercargo of a leaky old ketch owned by
Mrs. Molly MacLaggan of Samoa, which in those days was the Land of
Primeval Wickedness and Original and Imported Sin, Strong Drink, and
Loose Fish generally. Captain "Bully" Hayes also lived in Samoa; his
house and garden adjoined that of Mrs. MacLaggan, and at the back there
was a galvanised iron cottage, inhabited by a drunken French carpenter
named Leger, whose wife was a full-blooded negress, and made kava for
Denison and "Bully" every evening, and used to beat Billy MacLaggan on
the head with a pole about six times a day, and curse him vigorously in
mongrel Martinique French. Billy MacLaggan was Mrs. Molly's male goat,
and as notorious in Samoa as Bully Hayes himself.

I want to try and tell this story as clearly as possible, but there are
so many people concerned, and so many things which really happened
together, though each one seemed to come before the other a little and
try and get into the general jumble, and every one was so confused,
some fatuous people blaming the goat, and some Denison, who was
generally disliked by the Germans, while Mrs. Molly said it was caused
by the man with the bucket of milk, and Captain Hayes who had bribed him
to do it, and nearly caused bloodshed, as the German officer who was
insulted by Hayes had shot a lot of people in duels, or if he had not
shot them he had stuck his sword into them in fifteen places, more or
less.

Now let me explain: First of all there was Mrs. Molly, who was the