Long time Kumuhana sat on in silence, debating the argument and
finding no way to evade the fact-logic of it.

"Great is your haole wisdom," he conceded at last.

"Yes? or no?" Hardman Pool drove home the point of his steel.

Kumuhana looked about him first, then slowly let his eyes come to
rest on the fly-flapping maid.

"Go," Pool commanded her. "And come not back without you hear a
clapping of my hands."

Hardman Pool spoke no further, even after the flapper had
disappeared into the house; yet his face adamantly looked: "Yes or
no?"

Again Kumuhana looked carefully about him, and up into the monkey-
pod boughs as if to apprehend a lurking listener. His lips were
very dry. With his tongue he moistened them repeatedly. Twice he
essayed to speak, but was inarticulately husky. And finally, with
bowed head, he whispered, so low and solemnly that Hardman Pool
bent his own head to hear: "No."

Pool clapped his hands, and the little maid ran out of the house to
him in tremulous, fluttery haste.

"Bring a milk and gin for old Kumuhana, here," Pool commanded; and,
to Kumuhana: "Now tell me the whole story."